January 27

Historic Events

2023

Protests and public outrage spark across the U.S. after the release of multiple videos by the Memphis Police Department showing officers punching, kicking, and pepper spraying Tyre Nichols as a result of running away from a traffic stop, which resulted him dying in the hospital three days later after the incident. ›

2023

A shooting at a synagogue in Neve Yaakov, East Jerusalem, kills seven people and injures three others. ›

2023

An attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Pasdaran, Tehran, kills one person and injures three others. ›

2017

A naming ceremony for the chemical element tennessine takes place in the United States. ›

2014

Rojava conflict: The Kobanî Canton declares its autonomy from the Syrian Arab Republic. ›

2013

Two hundred and forty-two people die in a nightclub fire in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul. ›

2011

Arab Spring: The Yemeni Revolution begins as over 16,000 protestors demonstrate in Sanaa. ›

2011

Within Ursa Minor, H1504+65, a white dwarf with the hottest known surface temperature in the universe at 200,000 K, was documented. ›

2010

The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis ends when Porfirio Lobo Sosa becomes the new President of Honduras. ›

2010

Apple announces the iPad. ›

2003

The first selections for the National Recording Registry are announced by the Library of Congress. ›

2002

An explosion at a military storage facility in Lagos, Nigeria, kills at least 1,100 people and displaces over 20,000 others. ›

1996

In a military coup, Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane. ›

1996

Germany first observes the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. ›

1983

The pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel, the world's longest sub-aqueous tunnel (53.85 km) between the Japanese islands of Honshū and Hokkaidō, breaks through. ›

1980

Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, six American diplomats secretly escape hostilities in Iran in the culmination of the Canadian Caper. ›

1973

The Paris Peace Accords officially ends the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde is killed in action becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty. ›

1967

Apollo program: Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a test of their Apollo 1 spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. ›

1967

Cold War: The Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom sign the Outer Space Treaty in Washington, D.C., banning deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and limiting the usage of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes. ›

1965

South Vietnamese Prime Minister Trần Văn Hương is removed by the military junta of Nguyễn Khánh. ›

1961

The Soviet submarine S-80 sinks when its snorkel malfunctions, flooding the boat. ›

1951

Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with Operation Ranger. ›

1945

World War II: The Soviet 322nd Rifle Division liberates the remaining inmates of Auschwitz-Birkenau. ›

1944

World War II: The 872-day Siege of Leningrad is lifted. ›

1943

World War II: The Eighth Air Force sorties ninety-one B-17s and B-24s to attack the U-boat construction yards at Wilhelmshaven, Germany. This was the first American bombing attack on Germany. ›

1939

First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. ›

1928

Bundaberg tragedy: a diphtheria vaccine is contaminated with Staph. aureus bacterium, resulting in the deaths of twelve children in the Australian town of Bundaberg. ›

1927

Ibn Saud takes the title of King of Nejd. ›

1924

Six days after his death, Vladimir Lenin's body is carried into a specially erected mausoleum. ›

1918

Beginning of the Finnish Civil War. ›

1916

World War I: The British government passes the Military Service Act that introduces conscription in the United Kingdom. ›

1880

Thomas Edison receives a patent for his incandescent lamp. ›

1874

Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov premieres in Mariinsky Theatre in St.Petersburg. ›

1869

Boshin War: Tokugawa rebels establish the Ezo Republic in Hokkaidō. ›

1868

Boshin War: The Battle of Toba–Fushimi begins, between forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and pro-Imperial factions; it will end in defeat for the shogunate, and is a pivotal point in the Meiji Restoration. ›

1825

The U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory (in what is present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears". ›

1820

A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovers the Antarctic continent, approaching the Antarctic coast. ›

1785

The University of Georgia is founded, the first state-chartered public university in the United States. ›

1776

American Revolutionary War: Henry Knox's "noble train of artillery" arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ›

1759

Spanish forces clash with indigenous Huilliches of southern Chile in the battle of Río Bueno. ›

1726

J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Alles nur nach Gottes Willen, BWV 72, concluding his third Christmas season in Leipzig on the Third Sunday after Epiphany. ›

1695

Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan and Caliph of Islam in Istanbul on the death of Ahmed II. Mustafa rules until his abdication in 1703. ›

1606

Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, ending with their execution on January 31. ›

1343

Pope Clement VI issues the papal bull Unigenitus, laying out the scriptural justification for indulgences, identifying only the Pope and episcopate as capable of accessing the treasury of merit, and establishing a jubilee year every half century. ›

1302

Dante Alighieri is condemned in absentia and exiled from Florence. ›

1186

Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, marries Constance of Sicily. ›

945

The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown and forced to become monks by Constantine VII, who becomes sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire. ›

532

Nika riots in Constantinople fail. ›

417

Pope Innocent I declares Pelagius and his follower Caelestius excommunicated unless they return to orthodoxy. ›

98

Trajan succeeds his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor. ›