March 27

March 27 is the 86th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (87th in Leap years). There are 279 days remaining.

Events

• 1306 – Robert I of Scotland and Elizabeth de Burgh are crowned king and Queen of the Scots.
• 1513 – (not 1512 as often cited) – Explorer Juan Ponce de León sights North America (specifically Florida) for the first time, mistaking it for another island.
• 1625 – Charles I becomes King of England and Scotland.
• 1782 – Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• 1794 – The government of the United States establishes a permanent United States Navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
• 1794 – Denmark and Sweden form a neutrality compact.
• 1814 – War of 1812: In northern Alabama, United States forces under General Andrew Jackson defeat the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
• 1836 – Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre – Antonio López de Santa Anna orders the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texans at Goliad, Texas.
• 1846 – Mexican-American War: Siege of Fort Texas.
• 1851 – First reported case of Europeans seeing Yosemite Valley.
• 1871 – First international rugby football match, England v. Scotland, played in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.
• 1918 – Moldova and Bessarabia join Romania.
• 1923 – FART construction completed.
• 1938 – Battle of Tai er zhuang
• 1941 – Britain supports Peter II of Yugoslavia in a coup in Yugoslavia.
• 1942 – World War II: United Kingdom forces raid the U-boat base at St. Nazaire, France.
• 1945 – World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways begins.
• 1952 – Sun Records begins operations.
• 1958 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.
• 1963 – Dr Beeching issues a report calling for huge cuts to the United Kingdom's rail network. See Beeching axe.
• 1964 – The Good Friday Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes South Central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.
• 1969 – Mariner 7 is launched.
• 1976 – The first 4.6 miles of the Washington, DC subway system is opened.
• 1977 – Tenerife disaster: Two jumbo jets collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583.
• 1980 – The Norwegian oil platform Alexander Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.
• 1986 – Car bomb explodes at Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, killing 1 police officer.
• 1988 – Moudud Ahmed becomes Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
• 1989 – Generations, the first American soap opera to have an entire black family in its original core cast, commences telecasts on NBC.
• 1990 – Propaganda: The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí to Cuba.
• 1993 – Jiang Zemin is appointed President of the People's Republic of China.
• 1993 – Albert Zafy becomes President of Madagascar.
• 1993 – Mahamane Ousmane becomes President of Niger.
• 1994 – One of the biggest tornado outbreaks in recent memory hits the Southeastern United States. One tornado slams into a church in Piedmont, Alabama during Palm Sunday services killing 20 and injuring 90.
• 2002 – Passover Massacre: A suicide bomber kills 28 people in Netanya, Israel.
• 2003 – An explosion in the Nitrochimie dynamite factory in Billy-Berclau, France kills 4 people.
• 2004 – HMS Scylla, a decommissioned Leander frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.

Births

• 972 – King Robert I of France (d. 1031)
• 1730 – Thomas Tyrwhitt, English classical scholar (d. 1786)
• 1746 – Michael Bruce, Scottish poet (d. 1767)
• 1765 – Franz Xaver von Baader, German philosopher and theologian (d. 1841)
• 1785 – King Louis XVII of France (d. 1795)
• 1797 – Alfred de Vigny, French author (d. 1863)
• 1809 – Baron Haussmann, French civic planner
• 1810 – William Hepworth Thompson, English classical scholar (d. 1886)
• 1813 – Nathaniel Currier, illustrator
• 1817 – Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli, Swiss biologist (d. 1891)
• 1845 – Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, physicist, winner of the first Nobel Prize in physics 1901 (d. 1923)
• 1847 – Otto Wallach, German chemist and Nobel Prize winner (d. 1931)
• 1851 – Vincent d'Indy, French composer and teacher (d. 1931)
• 1857 – Karl Pearson, statistician (d. 1936)
• 1860 – Frank Frost Abbott, American classical scholar (d. 1924)
• 1863 – Sir Henry Royce, English automobile pioneer (d. 1933)
• 1869 – James McNeill, Irish politician
• 1871 – Heinrich Mann, narrator, dramatist and essayist (d. 1950)
• 1882 – Ferde Grofé, American composer (d. 1972)
• 1886 – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect (d. 1969)
• 1893 – Karl Mannheim, Hungarian sociologist (d. 1947)
• 1899 – Gloria Swanson, actress (d. 1983)
• 1901 – Carl Barks, Donald Duck illustrator (d. 2000)
• 1901  – Sato Eisaku, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1975)
• 1901  – Sasaki Naojiro, Japanese author (d. 1943)
• 1901  – Erich Ollenhauer, politician (d. 1963)
• 1901  – Kenneth Slessor, Australian poet (d. 1971)
• 1905 – Elsie MacGill, aeronautical engineer, "Queen of the Hurricanes" (d. 1980)
• 1906 – Pee Wee Russell, US jazz musician (d. 1969)
• 1907 – Mary Treen, American actress (d. 1989)
• 1909 – Golo Mann, historian and publicist (d. 1994)
• 1910 – John Pierce, electrical engineer
• 1912 – James Callaghan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 2005)
• 1914 – Budd Schulberg, screenwriter and novelist
• 1914 – Snooky Lanson, American singer (d. 1990)
• 1914 – Richard Denning, American actor (d. 1998)
• 1915 – Junior Lockwood, American blues musician
• 1917 – Cyrus Vance, US politician (d. 2002)
• 1921 – Harold Nicholas, American dancer (d. 2000)
• 1922 – Pierre Pairault aka Stefan Wul, French author (d. 2003)
• 1923 – Louis Simpson, poet
• 1923  – Endo Shusaku, Catholic Japanese author (d. 1996)
• 1924 – Sarah Vaughan, singer (d. 1990)
• 1927 – Mstislav Rostropovich, conductor, musician
• 1931 – David Janssen, actor (d. 1980)
• 1931 – Walter Kieber, Liechtenstein Head of Government (d. 1978)
• 1935 – Julian Glover, British actor
• 1939 – Cale Yarborough, NASCAR race car driver
• 1940 – Austin Pendleton, American actor
• 1942 – Michael York, actor
• 1947 – Brian Jones, British balloonist
• 1950 – Tony Banks, musician of Genesis
• 1952 – Maria Schneider, French actress
• 1954 – Wally Stocker, musician of The Babys
• 1957 – Nick Hawkins, British politician
• 1959 – Andrew Farriss, musician of INXS
• 1961 – Tak Matsumoto, Japanese guitarist(B'z)
• 1962 – Jann Arden, Canadian musician
• 1963 – Quentin Tarantino, actor, director, writer, producer
• 1963  – Xuxa, television personality
• 1967 – Talisa Soto, actress
• 1968 – Sadie Frost, British actress
• 1970 – Mariah Carey, singer
• 1970  – Brendan Hill, musician ("Blues Traveler")
• 1970  – Princess Leila of Iran (d. 2001)
• 1971 – David Coulthard, Formula One racing driver
• 1975 – Fergie, American musician (Black Eyed Peas)
• 1986 – Baby M

Deaths

• 1191 – Pope Clement III
• 1350 – King Alfonso XI of Castile, (b. 1312)
• 1378 – Pope Gregory XI
• 1482 – Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold and wife of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1457)
• 1555 – William Hunter, protestant martyr
• 1615 – Margaret of Valois, queen of Henry IV of France (b. 1553)
• 1625 – King James I of England and Ireland, James VI of Scotland (b. 1566)
• 1635 – Robert Naunton, English politician, (b. 1563)
• 1757 – Johann Stamitz, Czech composer and violinist (b. 1717)
• 1770 – Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Italian artist (b. 1696)
• 1809 – Joseph-Marie Vien, French painter (b. 1716)
• 1827 – François Alexandre Frédéric, duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, French social reformer (b. 1747)
• 1836 – James Fannin, Texas revolutionary (b. 1804)
• 1843 – Karl Salomo Zachariae von Lingenthal, German jurist, (b. 1769)
• 1849 – Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford, (b. 1776)
• 1850 – Wilhelm Beer, astronomer (b. 1797)
• 1864 – Jean-Jacques Ampère, French scholar (b. 1800)
• 1865 – Petrus Hoffman Peerlkamp, Dutch scholar (b. 1786)
• 1873 – Amedée Simon Dominique Thierry, French journalist and historian (b. 1797)
• 1875 – Edgar Quinet, French historian (b. 1803)
• 1878 – Sir George Gilbert Scott, architect (b. 1811)
• 1889 – John Bright, (b. 1811)
• 1910 – Alexander Emanuel Agassiz, American scientist and engineer (b. 1835)
• 1918 – Henry Adams, American historian (b. 1838)
• 1923 – Sir James Dewar, chemist (b. 1842)
• 1924 – Walter Parratt, composer (b. 1841)
• 1927 – Joe Start, baseball player (b. 1842)
• 1931 – Arnold Bennett, British novelist (b. 1867)
• 1940 – Michael Joseph Savage, Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1872)
• 1967 – Jim Thompson, designer (disappeared) (b. 1906)
• 1968 – Yuri Gagarin, cosmonaut (b. 1934)
• 1969 – B. Traven, writer
• 1972 – M. C. Escher, Dutch artist (b. 1898)
• 1972 – Sharkey Bonano, jazz musician (b. 1904)
• 1977 – A. P. Hamann, American politician
• 1977 – Diana Hyland, American actress
• 1991 – Ralph Bates, British actor (b. 1940)
• 1991 – Aldo Ray, American actor
• 1992 – Easley Blackwood, bridge player (b. 1903)
• 1993 – Paul Laszlo, interior designer and architect (b. 1900)
• 1998 – David McClelland, psychological theorist (b. 1917)
• 1998  – Ferry Porsche, Austrian automobile manufacturer (b. 1909)
• 2000 – Ian Dury, English rock musician (b. 1942)
• 2002 – Milton Berle, American actor and comedian (b. 1908)
• 2002  – Dudley Moore, British actor, musician, and composer (b. 1935)
• 2002  – Billy Wilder, American director (b. 1906)
• 2003 – Ricardo Munguia, aid worker in Afghanistan
• 2003 – Paul Zindel, American author and playwright
• 2005 – Bob Casey, baseball announcer (b. 1925)

Holidays and observances

• 2005, 2016: Easter
• Angolan Victory Day
• Feast day of Rupert of Salzburg in the Roman Catholic Church

External links

• BBC: On This Day

March 26 – March 28 – February 27 – April 27 — listing of all days