May 27
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
May 27 is the 147th day of the year (148th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 218 days remaining until the end of the year.
Births [change]
- 1332 – Ibn Khaldun, Arab polymath (d. 1406)
- 1519 – Girolamo Mei, Italian historian (d. 1594)
- 1623 – William Petty, English scientist and philosopher (d. 1687)
- 1626 – William II, Prince of Orange (d. 1650)
- 1652 – Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate (Charlotte Elizabeth, Duchesse d'Orléans) (d. 1722)
- 1738 – Nathaniel Gorham, American politician (d. 1796)
- 1774 – Francis Beaufort, Irish scientist and admiral (d. 1857)
- 1794 – Cornelius Vanderbilt, entrepreneur (d. 1877)
- 1819 – Julia Ward Howe, composer ("The Battle Hymn of the Republic") (d. 1910)
- 1819 – George V of Hanover (d. 1878)
- 1820 – Mathilde Bonaparte, French princess and socialite (d. 1904)
- 1836 – Jay Gould, American financier (d. 1892)
- 1837 – Wild Bill Hickok, American gunfighter (d. 1876)
- 1860 – Manuel Teixeira Gomes, 7th President of Portugal (d. 1941)
- 1864 – Ante Trumbić, Croat politician (d. 1938)
- 1867 – Arnold Bennett, British novelist (d. 1931)
- 1871 – Georges Rouault, painter and graphic artist (d. 1958)
- 1877 – Isadora Duncan, American dancer (d. 1927)
- 1879 – Karl Bühler, psychologist (d. 1963)
- 1884 – Max Brod, author (d. 1968)
- 1888 – Louis Durey, French composer (d. 1979)
- 1893 – Hermann Dornemann, German, world's oldest man from November 19, 2004 (d. 2005)
- 1894 – Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French writer (d. 1961)
- 1894 – Dashiell Hammett, American author (d. 1961)
- 1897 – John Cockcroft, British physicist (d. 1967)
- 1904 – Chohei Nambu, Japanese athlete (d. 1997)
- 1907 – Rachel Carson, American ecologist (d. 1964)
- 1909 – Dolores Hope, American singer (d. 2011)
- 1911 – Hubert H. Humphrey, Vice President of the United States (d. 1978)
- 1911 – Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem (d. 2007)
- 1911 – Vincent Price, American actor (d. 1993)
- 1912 – John Cheever, author (d. 1982)
- 1912 – Sam Snead, American golf champion (d. 2002)
- 1913 – Wols, German painter (d. 1951)
- 1915 – Herman Wouk, writer
- 1917 – Yasuhiro Nakasone, former Prime Minister of Japan
- 1921 – Caryl Chessman, American, executed for murder (d. 1960)
- 1922 – Christopher Lee, English actor
- 1922 – John David Vanderhoof, 36th Governor of Colorado
- 1923 – Henry Kissinger, American politician, received the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1923 – Sumner Redstone, entrepreneur
- 1925 – Tony Hillerman, American mystery writer (d. 2008)
- 1930 – John Barth, novelist
- 1930 – Eino Tamberg, Estonian composer (d. 2010)
- 1930 – William S. Sessions, FBI director
- 1934 – Harlan Ellison, science fiction author
- 1935 – Lee Meriwether, American actress and former Miss America
- 1936 – Louis Gossett Jr., actor
- 1937 – Allan Carr, producer, writer (d. 1999)
- 1943 – Cilla Black, English singer
- 1945 – Bruce Cockburn, musician
- 1946 – Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Danish jazz musician (d. 2005)
- 1947 – Branko Oblak, Slovenian footballer
- 1951 – Ana Belen, Spanish singer and actress
- 1955 – Eric Bischoff, American WWE performer
- 1957 – Siouxsie Sioux, English musician ("Siouxsie and the Banshees")
- 1957 – Duncan Goodhew, English swimmer
- 1958 – Neil Finn, New Zealand singer and songwriter
- 1958 – Linnea Quigley, American actress
- 1958 – Wayne Williams, American child murderer
- 1961 – Peri Gilpin, actress
- 1965 – Adam Corola, American radio personality
- 1965 – Todd Bridges, American actor
- 1965 – Pat Cash, Australian tennis player
- 1966 – Sean Kinney, American drummer (Alice in Chains)
- 1966 – Heston Blumenthal, English chef
- 1967 – Paul Gascoigne, English footballer
- 1968 – Rebekah Brooks, English newspaper editor
- 1968 – Jeff Bagwell, American baseball player
- 1968 – Frank Thomas, American baseball player
- 1970 – Joseph Fiennes, British actor
- 1971 – Paul Bettany, British actor
- 1971 – Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes, singer (d. 2002)
- 1974 – Derek Webb, singer-songwriter, former member of Caedmon's Call
- 1974 – Danny Wuerffel, American football quarterback, Heisman Trophy winner
- 1975 – Jamie Oliver, British celebrity chef and TV personality (The Naked Chef)
- 1975 – Michael Hussey, Australian cricketer
- 1976 – Jiri Stajner, Czech footballer
- 1977 – Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lankan cricketer
- 1979 – Mile Sterjovski, Australian footballer
- 1981 – Johan Elmander, Swedish footballer
- 1981 – Miloy, Angolan footballer
- 1981 – Fivos Constantinou, Cypriot runner
- 1983 – Bobby Convey, American soccer player
- 1985 – Roberto Soldado, Spanish footballer
- 1987 – Gervinho, Ivorian footballer
- 1990 – Chris Colfer, American actor
Deaths [change]
- 366 – Procopius, Roman usurper (b. 326)
- 866 – Ordoño I, king of Asturias
- 927 – Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria
- 1508 – Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (b. 1452)
- 1541 – Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence (executed) (b. 1374)
- 1564 – John Calvin, religious reformer (b. 1509)
- 1610 – Ravaillac, assassin who killed Henry IV of France (b. 1578)
- 1661 – Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, Scottish Covenanter, was beheaded
- 1707 – Marquise de Montespan, mistress of Louis XIV of France (b. 1641)
- 1797 – François-Noël Babeuf, French revolutionary and early socialist (b. 1760)
- 1831 – Jedediah Smith, American explorer (b. 1799)
- 1840 – Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1782)
- 1910 – Robert Koch, German doctor, won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1843)
- 1926 – Srečko Kosovel, Slovenian poet
- 1960 – James Montgomery Flagg, illustrator (b. 1877)
- 1964 – Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India (b. 1889)
- 1985 – Kai Lindberg, Danish politician (b. 1899)
- 1986 – Isma'il Raji' al-Faruqi, Palestinian-American Muslim thinker, philosopher, and comparative religion scholar (b. 1921)
- 1987 – John Howard Northrop, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1891)
- 1991 – Leopold Nowak, musicologist (b. 1904)
- 1993 – Werner Stocker, German actor (b. 1955)
- 2000 – Crawford Murray MacLehose of Beoch, British Governor of Hong Kong (b. 1917)
- 2000 – Maurice Richard, ice hockey player (b. 1921)
- 2003 – Luciano Berio, Italian composer (b. 1925)
- 2004 – Umberto Agnelli, Italian entrepreneur (b. 1934)
- 2007 – Zard, Japanese singer (b. 1967)
- 2008 – Franz Kuenstler, last-surviving Austro-Hungarian World War I veteran (b. 1900)
- 2009 – Clive Grainger, British economist (b. 1934)
- 2010 – John William Finn, American naval officer (b. 1909)
- 2011 – Margo Dydek, Polish basketball player (b. 1974)
- 2011 – Jeff Conaway, American actor (b. 1950)
- 2011 – Gil Scott-Heron, American rapper and poet (b. 1949)
Events [change]
- 1328 – Philip VI is crowned King of France.
- 1703 – Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.
- 1813 – War of 1812: In Canada, American forces capture Fort George.
- 1849 – The Great Hall of Euston station, London opened.
- 1860 – Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian Unification.
- 1883 – Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.
- 1895 – Oscar Wilde is sent to prison for sodomy.
- 1896 – The F5-strength East St. Louis Tornado hits in East Saint Louis, Illinois, and St. Louis, Missouri, killing 255 people.
- 1901 – In New Jersey, the Edison Storage Battery Company is founded.
- 1905 – Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima begins.
- 1907 – A Bubonic plague outbreak begins in San Francisco, California.
- 1919 – The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight.
- 1923 – The first 24 hours of Le Mans race ends.
- 1924 – The Music Corporation of America (MCA) is founded.
- 1927 – The Ford Motor Company stops making the Ford Model T and gets ready to make Ford Model As.
- 1930 – The 1,046 feet (319 meters) tall Chrysler Building in New York (tallest man-made structure at the time) opens to the public.
- 1932 – The Sydney Harbour Bridge opens.
- 1933 – New Deal: The U.S. Federal Securities Act is signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission.
- 1933 – The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon The Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"
- 1933 – The Century of Progress World's Fair opens in Chicago.
- 1935 – New Deal: The Supreme Court of the United States declares the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional in the case A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, (295 U.S. 495).
- 1936 – The RMS Queen Mary begins her first voyage.
- 1937 – In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County.
- 1939 – DC Comics prints its second superhero in Detective Comics #27; he is Batman, one of the most topical comic book superheroes of all time.
- 1940 – World War II: 97 out of 99 members of a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are massacred while trying to surrender at Dunkirk. The German commander, Captain Fritz Knochlein, is later hanged for war crimes.
- 1941 – World War II: US President Franklin Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency".
- 1941 – World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing 2,300 men.
- 1960 – In Turkey, General Cemal Gürsel leads a military coup d'état removing President Celal Bayar and the rest of the democratic government.
- 1963 – Folk music singer Bob Dylan releases The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album, which features "Blowin' in the Wind" and several other of his best-known songs.
- 1964 – Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru dies in office.
- 1965 – Vietnam War: United States warships begin bombing of National Liberation Front targets within South Vietnam for the first time.
- 1967 – Australians vote to change the Constitution to give Indigenous Australians equal rights
- 1968 – Future U.S. President George W. Bush joins the Texas Air National Guard.
- 1974 – Jacques Chirac becomes Prime Minister of France.
- 1980 – The Gwangju Massacre: air force and army troops of South Korea retake the city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207 and possibly many more.
- 1995 – In Charlottesville, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed (not able to move) from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.
- 1996 – First Chechnya War: Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and agrees to a cease-fire in the war.
- 1997 – The F5-strength Jarrell Tornado slams into the small town of Jarrell, Texas, killing 27 people.
- 1998 – Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.
- 1999 – The International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands charges Slobodan Milošević and 4 others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
- 2005 – Schapelle Corby is sentenced to 20 years in jail for marijuana smuggling in Indonesia.
- 2006 – An earthquake in Java kills over 6,600 people and destroys the cities of Bantul and Yogyakarta.
