TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: AUG 27
479 BC Greco-Persian Wars: Battle of Plataea, Persian forces led by Mardonius routed by Greek army under Pausanias; together with Greek success at Battle of Mycale halts Persian invasion of Greece
663 Battle of Baekgang: Tang Chinese and Silla Korean forces defeat Korean Baekje forces and their Yamato Japanese allies on the Geum River in Korea. Last Japanese invasion of Korea for 900 years.
1626 The Danes are crushed by the Catholic League in Germany, marking the end of Danish intervention in European wars.
1660 The books of John Milton were burned in London due to his attacks on King Charles II.
1667 Earliest recorded hurricane in US (Jamestown Virginia)
1776 The Americans are defeated by the British at the Battle of Long Island, New York.
1789 French National Assembly issues the “Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen”
1858 The first cabled news dispatch was sent and was published by “The New York Sun” newspaper. The story was about the peace demands of England and France being met by China.
1859 Edwin Drake drilled the first successful U.S. oil well near Titusville, Pa.
1881 New York state’s Pure Food Law goes into effect to prevent “the adulteration of food or drugs.”
1894 The United States congress passes an income tax law as part of a general tariff act, but it is found unconstitutional.
1896 Zanzibar loses to England in a 38 minute war (9:02 AM-9:40 AM)
1910 Thomas Edison demonstrates the first “talking” pictures–using a phonograph–in his New Jersey laboratory.
1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs’ publishes Tarzan
1928 Fifteen nations sign the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact, outlawing war and calling for the settlement of disputes through arbitration. Forty-seven other countries eventually sign the pact.
1938 Robert Frost, in a fit of jealousy, set fire to some papers to disrupt a poetry recital by another poet, Archibald MacLeish.
1945 U.S. troops began landing in Japan after Japan’s surrender in World War II.
1979 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and last Viceroy of India, is killed along with three companions, two of them children by the IRA when his boat is blown up near Sligo, Ireland
1984 U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced that the first citizen to go into space would be a teacher. The teacher that was eventually chosen was Christa McAuliffe. She died in the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986.
1985 Military coup in Nigeria
1996 California Governor Pete Wilson signed an order that would halt state benefits to illegal immigrants.
1999 The final crew of the Russian space station Mir departed the station to return to Earth. Russia was forced to abandon Mir for financial reasons.
2001 Work began on the future site of a World War II memorial on the U.S. capital’s historic national Mall. The site is between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.
2003 Mars approaches closest to the Earth since 57,617 BC
2012 First interplanetary human voice recording is broadcast from the Mars Rover Curiosity.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
