May 27
1647 Death: Achsah Young, in Massachusetts; the first recorded American execution of a witch.
1679 The English parliament passes the Habeas Corpus Act, protecting citizens against false arrest and imprisonment. Though later repealed from time to time, the main principles of the act will later be incorporated into the US Constitution.
1703 Czar Peter the Great founded the city of St. Petersburg as Russia's new capital.
1794 Birth: Cornelius Vanderbilt, capitalist.
1797 Proto-communist Francois-Noel Babeuf is executed in France after formulating a doctrine for "equal distribution of land and income."
1818 Birth: American reformer Amelia Jenks Bloomer, in Homer, New York; will popularize Bloomers, the garment bearing her name.
1837 Birth: James Butler, AKA Wild Bill Hickok, US Marshall, frontiersman.
1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi takes Palermo, Sicily in his struggle to unite Italy.
1879 Birth: Hans Heinrich Lammers, SS lieutenant general, Chief of the Hitler's Reich Chancellery, 1933-45. Will be sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in 1949 and released in 1952.
1883 Czar Alexander III is crowned in Moscow.
1894 Birth: Dashiell Hammett, author. "The master of “hard-boiled” detective fiction, Dashiell Hammett, had published short stories as early as 1922 but his first real success came in the 1930s, with the publication of The Maltese Falcon. It was Hammett who created the archetypal private eye, Sam Spade, weaving in his own experiences as a Pinkerton investigator. He also wrote screenplays and radio shows, bringing his vision of the detective to new audiences. Despite serving heroically in World War II, Hammett was targeted in the McCarthy Communist witch-hunts and jailed. He was then shunned by Hollywood and publishers."
1905 Russo-Japanese War: Japan's fleet destroys the Russians at the battle of Tsushima Strait. Of the Russian fleet's 45 ships, only 12 reach safety.
1908 Birth: Ian Lancaster Fleming, author.
1911 Birth: Hubert Humphrey, 38th US VP. "...He was elected with President Lyndon B. Johnson on the Democratic ticket in 1964, and he was his party's unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1968. A leading champion of civil rights and other liberal causes, Humphrey made his national reputation as a U.S. senator, serving from 1949 to 1964 and from 1971 until his death. Despite his sometimes controversial stands, especially his support of the Johnson administration's Vietnam policy, and a hearty personality that bothered some with its exuberance, Humphrey became in his later years one of the most respected and beloved figures in American political life. An indication of that respect and love was bestowed on Humphrey after his death, when he was given a funeral worthy of a head of state. His body lay in the Capitol rotunda in Washington, and his last rites in Minneapolis were attended by the nation's leaders. President Jimmy Carter eulogized Humphrey by saying: "From time to time, our nation is blessed by the presence of men and women who bear the mark of greatness, who help us see a better vision of what we can become. Hubert Humphrey was such a man..."
1915 Birth: Herman Wouk, writer, novelist.
1917 Birth: Yasuhiro Nakasone, Japanese Prime Minister.
1918 WW1: Ludendorff attacks in great force along the Chemin des Dames as a diversion against the French, preparatory to a planned attack against the British in Flanders. German troops, preceded by tanks, route 12 French divisions (3 of them British), and by noon are crossing the Aisne. By evening they cross the Vesle, west of Fismes.
1918 WW1: May 27-June 13 Dispatch Runner Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler serves near Soissons and Reims with 3 Company, 16 Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. (Maser)
1923 Birth: Dr. Henry Kissinger, Nobel Peace Prizewinner, US Secretary of State under Nixon and Ford. "Henry Alfred Kissinger was the 56th Secretary of State of the United States from 1973 to 1977, continuing to hold the position of Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs which he first assumed in 1969 until 1975...Dr. Kissinger was born in Fuerth, Germany, on May 27, 1923, came to the United States in 1938, and was naturalised a United States citizen on June 19, 1943...from 1954 until 1971 he was a member of the Faculty of Harvard University, both in the Department of Government and at the Center for International Affairs...Secretary Kissinger has written many books and articles on United States foreign policy, international affairs, and diplomatic history..."
1926 The people of Hannibal, Missouri erect the first of many statues of literary characters as the bronze figures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are hoisted above a red granite base.
1930 Richard Drew invents masking tape.
1935 New Deal: The 'nine old men' of the US Supreme Court rule FDR's National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional.
1935 The International Congress of Sephardic Jewry is established.
1936 The maiden voyage of the ship, RMS Queen Mary begins as the huge vessel gets underway from Southampton, England for the New York Harbor in the US.
1937 Ceremonies marking the opening of the newly completed 4,200 feet Golden Gate Bridge, linking the city of San Francisco with Marin County, California are held; one of the greatest engineering marvels in the world.
1940 WW2: Operation Dynamo begins. "Operation Dynamo was the name given to the evacuation from Dunkirk conducted from 27 May to 4 June, 1940. In nine days, 338,226 French and British soldiers were taken off the beach by a ragtag fleet of over nine hundred vessels. These vessels, now known as the "Little Ships of Dunkirk" were a mainly a mixture of merchant marine vessels, fishing boats, pleasure craft and RNLI lifeboats, whose details had been requisitioned by the Admiralty on May 14. If the owners could not be contacted, some available ships were simply commandeered for use in the operation. Though the "Miracle of the Little Ships" is a major folk memory (at the time a useful propaganda tool too) and indeed small excursion steamers, pleasure boats and even rowboats DID help evacuate troops from the beaches - over 80% of the troops evacuated were actually taken off the harbour's protective mole by destroyers and larger ships. Despite the success of this operation, over fifty thousand vehicles and forty thousand French troops were abandoned after a valiant rearguard action. The British also lost 235 ships of various types. The rearguard, largely French, surrendered on 3 June 1940. The next day, the BBC reported, "Major-General Harold Alexander [the commander of the rearguard] inspected the shores of Dunkirk from a motorboat this morning to make sure no-one was left behind before boarding the last ship back to Britain." Some of the evacuated troops, both French and British, were shipped straight back to the battle via ports in Normandy and Britanny, where most were killed or captured. After the French surrender, a majority of the rescued French troops returned to their homeland, but a few chose to join the Free French and continue to fight."
1941 WW2: After a three day pursuit, the British ships Dorsetshire, King George V and Rodney, and aircraft from the carrier Ark Royal, sink the German battleship Bismarck in the Atlantic off Brest, France, with a loss of 2,300 lives. "...The Bismarck received a message from Hitler saying that "all our thoughts are with our victorious comrades." Admiral Lutjens replied: "Ship unmaneuverable; we shall fight to the last shell." The admiral ordered the captain to tell the crew that 81 Junkers planes would come to the support of the Bismarck at dawn and that U-boats had also been dispatched to join in her defense. During the night the British destroyers Maori, Cossack, and Sikh delivered a series of torpedo attacks at ranges between 3,000 and 9,000 yards. Three hits were claimed; the extent of the damage is not known. Flames were observed on the Bismarck's forecastle after the attacks, but these were promptly extinguished. The Bismarck kept the destroyers under accurate. fire during these night attacks, and it was only by skillful maneuvering and use of smoke that they escaped damage. In the morning the horizon to the northeast was clear, while rain squalls to the south and east made a poor background, The commander in chief of the British Home Fleet decided to approach on a bearing west-north-west, At 0848 the Bismarck came into sight, about 25,000 yards distant, steering directly towards the British heavy units. The Rodney opened fire at 0847, the King George V at 0848 and the Bismarck at 0850. The Bismarck's second salvo straddled the Rodney, one round being only 20 yards short, but the accuracy of her fire then deteriorated. At 0857 the Bismarck sustained her first hit. Five minutes later a 16-inch shell from the Rodney apparently put the German battleship's A and B turrets out of action. C and D turrets were firing on the King George V when a shell from one of the British warships carried away the rangefinder and paralyzed the control position. These exchanges took place at a range of about 20,000 yards. By 0020 range had been narrowed to 11,500 yards; 10 minutes later the Bismarck was on fire and virtually out of control, though her C and D turrets were still firing independently and her secondary battery was in use. Demoralization of the Bismarck's crew was now apparent. One officer is said to have drawn his revolver and shot several seamen who refused to obey him. Officers were reported to have committed suicide, and scores of the crew jumped overboard..."
1941 WW2: US President FDR reacts to the German navy's sinking of the merchant vessel Robin Moor by declaring a state of unlimited national emergency.
1941 WW2: Russia proclaims a state of national emergency. (Freedman)
1942 Holocaust: Reinhard Heydrich, one of Hitler's favorites and now Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, is seriously wounded in Prague by Czech nationals trained as British agents in England. Hitler quickly declares a state of siege in the protectorate, offers a reward of one million marks for the capture of the assassins, and vows to slaughter 10,000 Czechs. (Apparatus)
1942 Holocaust: At Dubno in the Ukraine, 5,000 Jews, judged to be nonproductive for the German war effort, are taken outside the town and killed. (Atlas)
1942 Resistance: All 152 members of the student group which had distributed anti-Nazi posters in Berlin, are shot.
1945 WW2: Units of the US l Corps takes Santa Fe on Luzon. Heavy fighting continues on Mindanao.
1946 Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: Hitler Youth Leader Von Schirach continues his testimony: "...May I at this point also comment on a difficulty of translation which occurred during the last cross-examination on Friday? The German word "Rester" was at that time translated into the English "savior." It is an expression which I used in my book when I described the Fuehrer as a "Rester," and the difficulty lies in the translation of that word into English: it can only be translated into English as 'savior.'' But retranslated into German, "savior" means "Hedland." In order to make quite clear what the German "Rester" is meant to express in English, I should have to use an explanatory phrase. If I say that the exact translation is "rescuer," then the real meaning of the word "Rester" is clearly set forth; and there is nothing blasphemous in the comparison or the description of the head of the State as a "rescuer." But if I had written in German that the head of the State was a "Hedland," then, of course, that would be blasphemy..."
1949 Death: Ropert L. Ripley, cartoonist; Believe It or Not.
1951 The Chinese Communists force the Dalai Lama, Tibet's dictator and spiritual leader, to surrender control of his region's foreign affairs and its army to Beijing.
1955 The census clock at the Department of Commerce Building in Washington, DC records a US population of 165,000,000 at 8:51 AM; a baby is now being born every eight seconds in the US.
1957 Senator Theodore F. Green of Rhode Island becomes the oldest person to serve in the US Congress; 89 years, 7 months and 26 days.
1963 Formerly jailed pro-independence leader Jomo Kenyatta is elected first prime minister of self-governing Kenya, becoming state president on independence from Britain the following year.
1974 French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing takes office, naming Jacques Chirac as prime minister.
1980 Dr. Milton Obote, deposed as Uganda's president by Idi Amin in 1971, returns home from exile. He will regain the presidency, only to be overthrown again in 1985.
1985 In Beijing, representatives of Britain and China exchange instruments of ratification of the pact returning Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997.
1986 Mel Fisher finds a jar containing 2,300 emeralds recovered from the Spanish ship Atocha, which sank in the 17th century.
1990 Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev attempts to calm his nation's economic nerves with a hastily scheduled television address.
1993 A suspected Mafia car bomb kills five people and badly damages an art collection in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
1994 Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn returns to Russia to the emotional cheers of thousands after 20 years in exile. The first action of the former dissident writer on reaching Russian soil is to salute the millions who died in Soviet prison camps.
1995 Ukraine and a consortium of Western firms sign a memorandum to plan by 2000 the closing of the Chernobyl nuclear power station, site of the world's worst nuclear accident nine years before.
1996 Russia signs a deal with the leader of the Chechen rebels to end fighting in the breakaway region from 1 June.
1997 Yeltsin and Clinton sign "Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation" which creates a permanent joint council including Russia in NATO decision-making.
1998 Michael Fortier, the US government's star witness in the Oklahoma City bombing case, is sentenced to 12 years in prison.
1999 A UN tribunal indicts Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity, holding the Yugoslav president responsible for the horrors in Kosovo and brutal purge of ethnic Albanians.
2001
2002 Pakistan's president vows not to initiate war against India but stands by demands over Kashmiri independence.
2002 The Bank of England stops issuing new £5 notes after finding the serial numbers can be rubbed off.
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