Wikipedia: May 27

May 27
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

May 27 is the 147th day (148th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 218 days remaining.

Events

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, United States forces capture Fort George
1849 - Great Hall of Euston Station, London opened
1883 - Alexander III crowned Tsar of Russia
1895 - Oscar Wilde is sent to prison for "somdomy"
1901 - In New Jersey, the Edison Storage Battery Company is founded.
1905 - Russo-Japanese War: Battle of Tsushima; decisive defeat of Russian fleet.
1907 - A Bubonic plague outbreak begins in San Francisco, California
1919 - NC-4 arrives in Lisbon, completeing first trans-Atlantic airplane flight
1924 - The Music Corporation of America (MCA) is founded
1923 - The first 24 hours of Le Mans race ends
1927 - Ford Motor Company ceases manufacturing the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make Ford Model As.
1933 - New Deal: The Federal Securities Act is signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission
1933 - Disney releases the cartoon The Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"
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 maiden voyage
1937 - In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County.
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 eventually hanged for war crimes.
1941 - World War II: President Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency."
1941 - World War II: German pocket battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing 2,300.
1960 - In Turkey, General Cemal Gürsel leads a military coup d'etat removing President Celal Bayar and the rest of the democratic government
1965 - Vietnam War: United States warships begin bombardments of Viet Cong targest within South Vietnam for the first time
1972 - President of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev and President of the United States Richard Nixon sign the SALT I agreements
1974 - Jacques Chirac becomes Prime Minister of France
1995 - In Charlottesville, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed 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 negotiates a cease-fire in the war.
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 indicts Slobodan Milosevic and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.

Births

1738 - Nathaniel Gorham, American politican (+1796)
1794 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, entrepreneur (+ 1877)
1819 - Julia Ward Howe, composer ("The Battle Hymn of the Republic") (+ 1910)
1836 - Jay Gould, American financier (+ 1892)
1837 - Wild Bill Hickock, gunfighter (+ 1876)
1871 - Georges Rouault, painter and graphic artist (+ 1958)
1877 or 1878- Isadora Duncan, free form and interpretative dancer (+ 1927)
1879 - Karl Bühler, psychologist (+ 1963)
1884 - Max Brod, author (+ 1968)
1888 - Louis Durey, composer, member of Les Six (+ 1979)
1894 - Dashiell Hammett, author of detective novels (+1961)
1907 - Rachel Carson, ecologist (+ 1964)
1911 - Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem
1911 - Vincent Price, actor (+ 1993)
1911 - Hubert H. Humphrey, former Vice President of the United States (+1978)
1912 - Sam Snead, golf champion (+ 2002)
1912 - John Cheever, author (+ 1982)
1915 - Herman Wouk writer
1917 - Yasuhiro Nakasone, former Prime Minister of Japan
1921 - Caryl Chessman, murderer (+ 1960)
1922 - Christopher Lee, actor
1923 - Henry Kissinger, American diplomat and recipient of the Nobel Prize in peace 1973
1923 - Sumner Redstone, entrepreneur
1925 - Tony Hillerman, mystery writer
1934 - Harlan Ellison, science fiction author
1936 - Louis Gossett Jr, actor
1937 - Allan Carr, producer, writer (+ 1999)
1943 - Cilla Black, singer
1945 - Bruce Cockburn, musician
1955 - Eric Bischoff, WWE performer
1957 - Siouxsie Sioux, musician ("Siouxsie and the Banshees ")
1958 - Neil Finn, New Zealand singer and songwriter
1958 - Wayne Williams, Atlanta, Georgia child murderer
1968 - Jeff Bagwell, baseball star
1968 - Frank Thomas, baseball star
1970 - Joseph Fiennes, actor
1971 - Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes, singer (+ 2002)
1975 - Jamie Oliver, British chef and TV personality (The Naked Chef)

Deaths

927 - Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria
1564 - John Calvin, religious reformer
1610 - Ravaillac, assassin who killed Henry IV of France
1661 - Archibald Campbell, Marquess of Argyll, Scottish Covenanter
1707 - Marquise de Montespan, mistress of the French King Louis XIV
1831 - Jedediah Smith, explorer
1840 - Niccolò Paganini, violinist, composer
1910 - Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch, German bacteriologist
1942 - Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi official
1960 - James Montgomery Flagg, illustrator
1964 - Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian politician
2000 - Crawford Murray MacLehose of Beoch, former Hong Kong Governor
2000 - Maurice Richard, ice hockey player
2003 - Luciano Berio, composer

Holidays and Observances

See Also:

May 26 -- May 28 -- April 27 -- June 27 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December