TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – APRIL 27
4977 BC- Johannes Kepler’s date for creation of universe
1509 Pope Julius II excommunicates the Italian state of Venice.
1521 Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed in a fight with natives of the Philippines.
1565 The first Spanish settlement in Philippines is established in Cebu City.
1773 British Parliament passes the Tea Act.
1805 A force led by U.S. Marines captured the city of Derna, on the shores of Tripoli.
1813 American forces capture York (present-day Toronto), the seat of government in Ontario.
1861 West Virginia secedes from Virginia after Virginia secedes from the Union.
1861 U.S. President Lincoln issued an order to General Winfield Scott that authorized him to suspend the writ of habeas corpus between Philadelphia and Washington at or near any military line.
1865 The Sultana, a steam-powered riverboat, catches fire and burns after one of its boilers explodes. At least 1,238 of the 2,031 passengers–mostly former Union POWs–are killed.
1874 White League, Paramilitary white supremacist organization, forms
1880 Francis Clarke and M.G. Foster patented the electrical hearing aid.
1937 US Social Security system makes its 1st benefit payment
1945 Italian partisans capture Benito Mussolini at Dongo (Lake Como)
1950 South Africa passes the Group Areas Act, formally segregating races
1965 “Pampers” were patented by R.C. Duncan.
1975 Saigon is encircled by North Vietnamese troops.
1978 The Afghanistan revolution begins.
1978 Accident at nuclear reactor Willow Island, Charleston WV, kills 51
1981 Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse
1982 Trial of John W Hinckley Jr, attempted assassin of President Ronald Reagan, begins
1984 In London, Libyan gunmen left the Libyan Embassy 11 days after killing a policewoman and wounding 10 others.
1986 Captain Midnight (John R MacDougall) interrupts HBO
1987 US Justice Department bars Austrian Chancellor Kurt Waldheim from entering US, due to his aid of Nazi Germany during WWII
1992 For the first time in its 700-year history, the British House of Commons is presided over by a female Speaker
1994 South African citizens of all races are allowed to vote in a general election for the first time
2007 Estonian authorities remove the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, amid political controversy with Russia.
2018 Historic Korean summit, the North’s Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in of South Korea agree to officially end Korean war and rid peninsula of nuclear weapons
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
