Events on March 27 41
Year 1309
Pope Clement V imposes excommunication and interdiction on Venice, and a general prohibition of all commercial intercourse with Venice, which had seized on Ferrara, a papal fiefdom.
Year 1329
Pope John XXII issues his In Agro Dominico condemning some writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical.
Year 1513
Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León reaches the northern end of The Bahamas on his first voyage to Florida.
Year 1625
Charles I becomes King of England, Scotland and Ireland as well as claiming the title King of France.
Year 1782
Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Year 1794
The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
Year 1809
Peninsular War: A combined Franco-Polish force defeats the Spanish in the Battle of Ciudad Real.
Year 1814
War of 1812: In central Alabama, U.S. forces under General Andrew Jackson defeat the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
Year 1836
Texas Revolution: On the orders of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican army massacres 342 Texas POWs at Goliad, Texas.
Year 1866
President Andrew Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866. His veto is overridden by Congress and the bill passes into law on April 9.
Year 1871
The first international rugby football match, when Scotland defeats England in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.
Year 1884
A mob in Cincinnati, Ohio, attacks members of a jury which had returned a verdict of manslaughter in what was seen as a clear case of murder; over the next few days the mob would riot and eventually destroy the courthouse.
Year 1886
Geronimo, Apache warrior, surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.
Year 1899
Emilio Aguinaldo leads Filipino forces for the only time during the Philippine-American War at the Battle of Marilao River.
Year 1915
Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, is put in quarantine, where she would remain for the rest of her life.
Year 1938
Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Taierzhuang begins, resulting several weeks later in the war's first major Chinese victory over Japan.
Year 1941
World War II: Yugoslavian Air Force officers topple the pro-Axis government in a bloodless coup.
Year 1943
World War II: Battle of the Komandorski Islands: In the Aleutian Islands the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska.
Year 1945
World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways begins. Argentina declares war on the Axis Powers.
Year 1958
Nikita Khrushchev becomes Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union
Year 1964
The Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful earthquake recorded in North American history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes Southcentral Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.
Year 1977
Tenerife airport disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 248 on KLM and 335 on Pan Am). Sixty-one survived on the Pan Am flight. This is the worst aviation accident in history.
Year 1980
The Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.
Year 1980
Silver Thursday: A steep fall in silver prices, resulting from the Hunt Brothers attempting to corner the market in silver, leads to panic on commodity and futures exchanges.
Year 1981
The Solidarity movement in Poland stages a warning strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walk off their jobs for four hours.
Year 1986
A car bomb explodes outside Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, Australia, killing one police officer and injuring 21 people.
Year 1990
The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí, an anti-Castro propaganda network, to Cuba.
Year 1993
Italian former minister and Christian Democracy leader Giulio Andreotti is accused of mafia allegiance by the tribunal of Palermo.
Year 1998
The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
Year 1999
Kosovo War: An American Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk is shot down by a Yugoslav SAM, the first and only Nighthawk to be lost in combat.
Year 2000
A Phillips Petroleum plant explosion in Pasadena, Texas kills one person and injures 71 others.
Year 2002
Passover massacre: A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 29 people at a Passover seder in Netanya, Israel.
Year 2002
Nanterre massacre: In Nanterre, France, a gunman opens fire at the end of a town council meeting, resulting in the deaths of eight councilors; 19 other people are injured.
Year 2004
HMS Scylla, a decommissioned Leander-class frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.
Year 2009
The dam forming Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, fails, killing at least 99 people.
Year 2014
Philippines signs a peace accord with the largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, ending decades of conflict.
Year 2015
Al-Shabab militants attack and temporarily occupy a Mogadishu hotel leaving at least 20 people dead.
Year 2016
A suicide blast in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, Lahore claims over 70 lives and leaves almost 300 others injured. The target of the bombing are Christians celebrating Easter.