TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – DEC 27
1512 The laws of Burgos give New World natives legal protection against abuse and authorize Negro slavery.
1657 Flushing Remonstrance petition signed in the Dutch colony of New Netherland protesting ban on Quaker worship
1831 HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin on board, departs from Plymouth. It will eventually visit the Galapagos Islands where Darwin will form his theories on evolution.
1845 Anesthesia used for the first time for childbirth
1900 Carrie Nation staged her first raid on a saloon at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, KS. She broke each and every one of the liquor bottles that could be seen.
1913 Charles Moyer, president of the Miners Union, is shot in the back and dragged through the streets of Chicago.
1915 In Ohio, iron and steel workers go on strike for an eight-hour day and higher wages.
1927 Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party.
1949 The Netherlands transferred sovereignty to Indonesia after more than 300 years of Dutch rule.
1950 The United States and Spain resume relations for the first time since the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.
1956 Segregation on buses in Tallahassee, Florida, is outlawed.
1978 Spain adopted a new constitution and became a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.
1979 President Hafizullah Amin of Afghanistan is ousted and murdered in a coup backed by the Soviet Union, beginning a war that will last more than 10 years.
1983 President Reagan takes all responsibility for the lack of security in Beirut that allowed a terrorist on a suicide mission to kill 241 Marines.
1984 Four Polish officers are tried for the slaying of Reverend Jerzy Popieluszko.
1985 Palestinian guerrillas kill 18 people at airports in Rome and Vienna.
1992 The U.S. shot down an Iraqi fighter jet during what the Pentagon described as a confrontation between a pair of Iraqi warplanes and U.S. F-16 jets in U.N.-restricted airspace over southern Iraq.
1996 Rwanda’s first genocide trial opened for the 1994 slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis.
2001 The U.S. announced plans to hold Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
2001 China receives permanent normal trade relations with the US.
2002 In Chechnya, at least 40 people were killed when suicide bombers attacked the administartion of Grozny.
2007 Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto assassinated.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
