January 27Birthdays & History

On this day: January 27 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 98Trajan succeeds his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor.Europe
2. 417Pope Innocent I declares Pelagius and his follower Caelestius excommunicated unless they return to orthodoxy.Europe
3. 532Nika riots in Constantinople fail.Middle East
4. 945The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown and forced to become monks by Constantine VII, who becomes sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire.Europe
5. 1186Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, marries Constance of Sicily.Europe
6. 1302Dante Alighieri is condemned in absentia and exiled from Florence.Europe
7. 1343Pope 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.Europe
8. 1606Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, ending with their execution on January 31.Europe
9. 1695Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan and Caliph of Islam in Istanbul on the death of Ahmed II. Mustafa rules until his abdication in 1703.Middle East
10. 1726J. 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.Europe
11. 1759Spanish forces clash with indigenous Huilliches of southern Chile in the battle of Río Bueno.EuropeLatin America
12. 1776American Revolutionary War: Henry Knox's "noble train of artillery" arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.North America
13. 1785The University of Georgia is founded, the first state-chartered public university in the United States.North America
14. 1820A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovers the Antarctic continent, approaching the Antarctic coast.Europe
15. 1825The 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".North America
16. 1868Boshin 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.Asia
17. 1869Boshin War: Tokugawa rebels establish the Ezo Republic in Hokkaidō.Asia
18. 1874Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov premieres in Mariinsky Theatre in St.Petersburg.Europe
19. 1880Thomas Edison receives a patent for his incandescent lamp.North America
20. 1916World War I: The British government passes the Military Service Act that introduces conscription in the United Kingdom.Europe
21. 1918Beginning of the Finnish Civil War.Europe
22. 1924Six days after his death, Vladimir Lenin's body is carried into a specially erected mausoleum.Europe
23. 1927Ibn Saud takes the title of King of Nejd.Middle East
24. 1928Bundaberg tragedy: a diphtheria vaccine is contaminated with Staph. aureus bacterium, resulting in the deaths of twelve children in the Australian town of Bundaberg.Oceania
25. 1939First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.North America
26. 1943World 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.EuropeNorth America
27. 1944World War II: The 872-day Siege of Leningrad is lifted.Europe
28. 1945World War II: The Soviet 322nd Rifle Division liberates the remaining inmates of Auschwitz-Birkenau.Europe
29. 1951Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with Operation Ranger.North America
30. 1961The Soviet submarine S-80 sinks when its snorkel malfunctions, flooding the boat.Europe
31. 1965South Vietnamese Prime Minister Trần Văn Hương is removed by the military junta of Nguyễn Khánh.Asia
32. 1967Apollo 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.North America
33. 1967Cold 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.EuropeNorth America
34. 1973The Paris Peace Accords officially ends the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde is killed in action becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.EuropeAsiaNorth America
35. 1980Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, six American diplomats secretly escape hostilities in Iran in the culmination of the Canadian Caper.North AmericaMiddle East
36. 1983The 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.Asia
37. 1996Germany first observes the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.Europe
38. 1996In a military coup, Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane.Africa
39. 2002An explosion at a military storage facility in Lagos, Nigeria, kills at least 1,100 people and displaces over 20,000 others.Africa
40. 2003The first selections for the National Recording Registry are announced by the Library of Congress.North America
41. 2010The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis ends when Porfirio Lobo Sosa becomes the new President of Honduras.Latin America
42. 2010Apple announces the iPad.North America
43. 2011Arab Spring: The Yemeni Revolution begins as over 16,000 protestors demonstrate in Sanaa.Middle East
44. 2011Within Ursa Minor, H1504+65, a white dwarf with the hottest known surface temperature in the universe at 200,000 K, was documented.World
45. 2013Two hundred and forty-two people die in a nightclub fire in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul.Latin America
46. 2014Rojava conflict: The Kobanî Canton declares its autonomy from the Syrian Arab Republic.AsiaMiddle East
47. 2017A naming ceremony for the chemical element tennessine takes place in the United States.North America
48. 2023A shooting at a synagogue in Neve Yaakov, East Jerusalem, kills seven people and injures three others.Middle East
49. 2023An attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Pasdaran, Tehran, kills one person and injures three others.EuropeMiddle East
50. 2023Protests 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.North America

Source: Wikipedia "January 27" / CC BY-SA 4.0