Back in Time – This Day in History – April 27

1937: The National Maritime Museum

By Mick Ferris, Press Association, AP, UPI, calendar.songfacts.com, classicbands.com and thisdayinmusic.com

1124: David I becomes king of Scots.

1296: The Scots are defeated by Edward I of England at The Battle of Dunbar.

1521: Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives of the Philippine Islands during his attempt to be the first to circumnavigate the world. His co-leader, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, completed the voyage in 1522.

1646: Charles I flees Oxford.

1667: Blind and impoverished poet John Milton sells the copyright to “Paradise Lost” for £10.

1749: First performance of Handle’s Music For Fireworks in Green Park, London.

1791: The inventor of the telegraph, Samuel Morse, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

1810: Ludwig van Beethoven composes his piano piece “Für Elise”.

1828: The Zoological Gardens at Regent’s Park open.

1840: The foundation stone for the new Palace of Westminster is laid by Sarah Barry, wife of architect Charles Barry.

1861: US President Abraham Lincoln suspends writ of habeas corpus. On the same day, West Virginia splits from Virginia after Virginia secedes from the Union.

1865: The steamboat Sultana, heavily overloaded with an estimated 2,300 passengers, most of them Union soldiers on their way home, exploded on the Mississippi River just north of Memphis. The death toll in the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history was set at 1,450.

1891: Birth of composer Sergei Prokofiev in the Ukraine.

1897: The cornerstone was laid for Grant's Tomb in New York City's Riverside Park. A holiday had been declared for the occasion and an enormous crowd turned out in honor of Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president and Civil War general who died 12 years earlier.

1904: Birth of Irish poet Cecil Day-Lewis.

1908: The Olympic Games opens in London.

1932: Prohibition and birth control were to be raised during the formal business meeting of the League of Women Voters in the run-up to the 1932 elections.

1937: The first Social Security payment was made in the United States.

1937: King George VI officially opened the National Maritime Museum. (From Prof. Frank McDonough@FXMC1957)

1940: Heinrich Himmler orders the creation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

1941: German forces occupied Athens during World War II.

1943: Polish Resistance fighter Witold Pilecki escapes from Auschwitz after having voluntarily been imprisoned there to gain information about the Holocaust.

1945: Italian partisans capture Benito Mussolini. On the same day, the US 5th army enters Genoa.

1950: Britain formally recognized the state of Israel.

1956: World heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano retires undefeated.

1956: Capitol Records signs Gene Vincent, intending to market him as the next Elvis.

1959: Mao Zedong resigns as Chairman of the PRC after the disastrous failure of the Great Leap Forward.

1960: Togo declares independence from French administration.

1961: Sierra Leone becomes independent after more than 150 years of British colonial rule. On the same day, NASA launches Explorer 11 into Earth orbit to study gamma rays.

1962: Arnold Wesker’s “Chips with Everything” premieres in London.

1963: Little Peggy March started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'I Will Follow Him'. At 15 years, 1 month and 13 days old, Little Peggy March became the youngest female singer to have a US No.1 record.

1965: Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow died in Pawling, New York, two days after turning 57.

1966: The Beatles started recording a John Lennon song ‘I’m Only Sleeping’ for the Revolver album at Abbey Road studios featuring for the first time, a backwards George Harrison solo.

1967: Sandie Shaw was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Puppet On A String', her third UK No.1 and the Eurovision Song Contest winner of 1967.

1968: Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president, less than a month after President Lyndon B. Johnson said he would not run for re-election.

1969: Pink Floyd appeared at Mothers Club in Erdington, Birmingham, England. Radio 1 DJ John Peel reviewed the gig as '...sounding like dying galaxies lost in sheer corridors of time and space'. Recordings from this show were included in the group’s 1969 album Ummagumma.

1972: Apollo 16 returns to Earth.

1974: A back-heel from Manchester City’s Denis Law condemns his former club, Manchester United to relegation. Law is immediately substituted and never plays League football again.

1974: US TOP 20 : Singles chart:

1. MFSB Featuring The Three Degrees - TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)

2. Elton John - Bennie And The Jets

3. Gladys Knight And The Pips - Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me

4. Grand Funk - The Loco-Motion

5. Ringo Starr - Oh My My

6. Blue Swede - Hooked On A Feeling

7. Redbone - Come And Get Your Love

8. Jackson 5 - Dancing Machine

9. Jim Croce - I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song

10. Bobby Womack - Lookin' For A Love

11. The Main Ingredient - Just Don't Want To Be Lonely

12. Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells

13. Three Dog Night - The Show Must Go On

14. John Denver - Sunshine On My Shoulders

15. Helen Reddy - Keep On Singing

16. Chicago - (i've Been) Searchin' So Long

17. Sister Janet Mead - The Lord's Prayer

18. Marvin Hamlisch/"The Sting" - The Entertainer

19. Ray Stevens - The Streak

20. Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye - My Mistake (Was To Love You)

***

1976: Customs officers on a train at the Russian/Polish Border detained David Bowie after Nazi books and mementos were found in his luggage.

1978: Communist rebels overthrew and killed Afghan President Mohammed Daoud Khan, a precursor to the Soviet-Afghan War.

1978: Convicted Watergate defendant John D. Ehrlichman was released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months.

1981: The Beatle and the Bond Girl: Ringo Starr marries actress Barbara Bach after meeting her on the set of the movie Caveman. They defy Hollywood odds and stay together.

1982: The trial of John W. Hinckley Jr., who shot four people, including President Ronald Reagan, began in Washington. (The trial ended with Hinckley’s acquittal by reason of insanity.)

1984: The siege of the Libyan Embassy in London ends 11 days after the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the St James’s Square building.

1985: USA For Africa started a three-week run at No.1 on the US chart with 'We Are The World'. The US artists' answer to Band Aid had an all-star cast including Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, Bob Dylan, Daryl Hall, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, Kim Carnes, Ray Charles, Billy Joel and Paul Simon plus the composer's of the track, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie.

1986: Soviet authorities order the evacuation of the city of Pripyat (pop. 50,000) one day after the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

1986: UK TOP 20: Album chart:

1. Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music - Street Life:  20 Great Hits

2. Various Artists - Hits 4

3. Whitney Houston - Whitney Houston

4. Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms

5. A-ha - Hunting High And Low

6. Simple Minds - Once Upon A Time

7. Shalamar - Greatest Hits - Shalamar

8. Various Artists - Heart To Heart

9. Sam Cooke - The Man And His Music

10. Jean Michel Jarre - Rendez-Vous

11. Pet Shop Boys - Please

12. Phil Collins - No Jacket Required

13. Chris Rea - On The Beach

14. Level 42 - World Machine

15. Prince And The Revolution - Parade

16. Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega

17. Mr Mister - Welcome To The Real World

18. Five Star - Luxury Of Life

19. Original Soundtrack - Absolute Beginners

20. Various Artists - Hits For Lovers

***

1987: The US Justice Department bars Austrian Chancellor and former UN General Secretary Kurt Waldheim from entering the country, due to his aid of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

1989: Students take over Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.

1991: An estimated 70 tornadoes hit Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa, killing 23 people and leaving thousands homeless.

1992: The new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed in Belgrade by the republic of Serbia and its lone ally, Montenegro. Russia and 12 other former Soviet republics won entry into the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Betty Boothroyd became the first female Speaker of Britain’s House of Commons.

1993: Kuwait said it foiled an Iraqi plot to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush during his visit earlier in the month.

1994: Virginia executed a condemned killer in the first case in which DNA testing was used to obtain a conviction.

1996: Actor Sean Penn marries actress Robin Wright.

2005: The super jumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France.

2006: Construction began on the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower at the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.

2009: A 23-month-old Mexico City toddler died at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, becoming the first swine-flu death on U.S. soil. A strong earthquake struck central Mexico, rattling nerves among residents already tense from a swine flu outbreak. One of President Barack Obama’s Air Force One jets, a Boeing 747, and an F-16 fighter jet panicked New Yorkers as they circled over lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty for what turned out to be a photo op. General Motors announced plans to cut 21,000 hourly jobs and scrap the Pontiac brand.

2011: A record outbreak of 358 tornadoes carved a devastating path through parts of 21 states from Texas to New York and on into Canada, hitting southern states hardest. Nearly 300 fatalities were reported, mostly in Alabama, over a four-day period.

2014: Two 20th-century popes who’d changed the course of the Roman Catholic church become saints as Pope Francis honored John XXIII and John Paul II; Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI joined him in the first celebration of Mass by a serving and retired pontiff in the church’s 2,000-year history.  A tornado tore through parts of Arkansas, killing 16 people. Lydia Ko birdied the final hole for her third LPGA Tour victory and first as a professional in the inaugural Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic, three days after celebrating her 17th birthday.

2018: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made history by crossing over to South Korea to meet with President Moon Jae-in; it was the first time a member of the Kim dynasty had set foot on southern soil since the end of the Korean War in 1953. The Republican-led House Intelligence Committee released a lengthy report concluding that it found no evidence that Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign. The members of the Swedish pop supergroup ABBA announced that they had recorded new material for the first time in 35 years, with two new songs.

2019: Pope Francis donates $500,000 for migrants stranded in Mexico trying to reach the US.

2020: Global confirmed cases of COVID-19 pass 3 million with the death toll at 205,000.

2020: About three in 10 Americans said they had experienced one or more disruptions in income or employment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

BIRTHDAYS: 

Jim Keltner, drummer, 79; 

Ann Peebles, singer-songwriter, 74; 

Kate Pierson, singer (The B52s) 73; 

Ace (Paul) Frehley, guitarist (Kiss) 70; 

Sheena Easton, singer, 62; 

Marco Pirroni, guitarist/songwriter (Adam and the Ants) 62; 

Russell T Davies, TV writer, 58; 

Mica Paris, singer/broadcaster, 52; 

Darcey Bushell, ballerina, 52; 

Tess Daly, TV presenter, 50; 

Sally Hawkins, actress, 45; 

Jenna Coleman, actress, 35; 

Lizzo (Melissa Jefferson), singer-songwriter/flautist, 33; 

Nick Kyrgios, tennis star, 26.