Events on November 27 49
Year 176
Emperor Marcus Aurelius grants his son Commodus the rank of "Imperator" and makes him Supreme Commander of the Roman legions.
Year 395
Rufinus, praetorian prefect of the East, is murdered by Gothic mercenaries under Gainas.
Year 602
Emperor Maurice is forced to watch his five sons be executed before being beheaded himself.
Year 1810
The Berners Street hoax was perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City of Westminster, London.
Year 1835
James Pratt and John Smith are hanged in London; they are the last two to be executed for sodomy in England.
Year 1856
The Coup of 1856 leads to Luxembourg's unilateral adoption of a new, reactionary constitution.
Year 1863
American Civil War: Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and several of his men escape the Ohio Penitentiary and return safely to the South.
Year 1863
American Civil War: Battle of Mine Run: Union forces under General George Meade take up positions against troops led by Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Year 1868
American Indian Wars: Battle of Washita River: United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on Cheyenne living on reservation land.
Year 1886
German judge Emil Hartwich sustains fatal injuries in a duel, which would become the background for Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest.
Year 1895
At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies.
Year 1940
In Romania, the ruling Iron Guard fascist party assassinates over 60 of arrested King Carol II of Romania's aides and other political dissidents.
Year 1940
World War II: At the Battle of Cape Spartivento, the Royal Navy engages the Regia Marina in the Mediterranean Sea.
Year 1942
World War II: At Toulon, the French navy scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of Nazi hands.
Year 1944
World War II: RAF Fauld explosion: An explosion at a Royal Air Force ammunition dump in Staffordshire kills seventy people.
Year 1945
CARE (then the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) was founded to a send CARE Packages of food relief to Europe after World War II.
Year 1965
Vietnam War: The Pentagon tells U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson that if planned operations are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam has to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000.
Year 1968
Penny Ann Early became the first woman to play major professional basketball, for the Kentucky Colonels in an ABA game against the Los Angeles Stars.
Year 1971
The Soviet space program's Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module. It malfunctions and crashes, but it is the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars.
Year 1973
Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States Senate votes 92-3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States. (On December 6, the House will confirm him 387-35).
Year 1975
The Provisional IRA assassinates Ross McWhirter, after a press conference in which McWhirter had announced a reward for the capture of those responsible for multiple bombings and shootings across England.
Year 1978
In San Francisco, city mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White.
Year 1978
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is founded in the city of Riha (Urfa) in Turkey.
Year 1983
Avianca Flight 011: A Boeing 747 crashes near Madrid's Barajas Airport, killing 181.
Year 1984
Under the Brussels Agreement signed between the governments of the United Kingdom and Spain, the former agreed to enter into discussions with Spain over Gibraltar, including sovereignty.
Year 1989
Avianca Flight 203: A Boeing 727 explodes in mid-air over Colombia, killing all 107 people on board and three people on the ground. The Medellín Cartel will claim responsibility for the attack.
Year 1992
For the second time in a year, military forces try to overthrow president Carlos Andrés Pérez in Venezuela.
Year 1999
The centre-left Labour Party takes control of the New Zealand government with leader Helen Clark becoming the first elected female Prime Minister in New Zealand's history.
Year 2001
A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.
Year 2004
Pope John Paul II returns the relics of Saint John Chrysostom to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Year 2006
The Canadian House of Commons approves a motion introduced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper recognizing the Québécois as a nation within Canada.
Year 2009
Nevsky Express bombing: A bomb explodes on the Nevsky Express train between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, derailing it and causing 28 deaths and 96 injuries.
Year 2015
United States: An active shooter inside a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado, shoots at least four police officers. One officer later dies. Two civilians were also killed, and six injured. The shooter later surrendered.