TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MARCH 27
1512 Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sights Florida.
1790 The shoelace invented
1794 Congress authorizes the construction of six frigates, including the Constitution (Old Ironsides), for the U.S. Navy.
1802 The Treaty of Amiens is signed, ending the French Revolutionary War.
1860 M L Byrn patents “covered gimlet screw with a ‘T’ handle” (corkscrew)
1836 1st Mormon temple dedicated (Kirtland OH)
1866 President Andrew Johnson vetoes the civil rights bill, which later becomes the 14th amendment.
1866 Andrew Rankin patents the urinal
1899 The Italian inventor G. Marconi achieves the first international radio transmission between England and France.
1912 The first cherry blossom trees, a gift from Japan, are planted in Washington, D.C.
1917 The Seattle Metropolitans became the first U.S. hockey team to win the Stanley Cup.
1933 Some 55,000 people stage a protest against Hitler in New York.
1944 Thousands of Jews are murdered in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Gestapo shoots forty Jewish policemen in the Riga, Latvia ghetto.
1956 US seizes US communist newspaper “Daily Worker”
1958 The United States announces a plan to explore space near the moon.
1976 Washington, D.C. opens its subway system.
1977 583 die in aviation’s worst ever disaster when two Boeing 747s collide at Tenerife airport in Spain
1997 39 cult memebers in California commit mass suicide (Hale-Bopp)
1998 Viagra is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
2001 A federal judge ruled that the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policy was invalid, a ruling that later would be reversed in an appeal.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
