Today in History

March 27 is the 86th day of the year (87th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 279 days remain until the end of the year.

1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León reaches the northern end of The Bahamas on his first voyage to Florida 1625 – Charles I becomes King of England, Scotland and Ireland as well as claiming the title King of France.

1782 – The Second Rockingham ministry assumes office in Great Britain and begins negotiations to end the American War of Independence.

1794 – The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.

1814 – War of 1812: In central Alabama, U.S. forces under General Andrew Jackson defeat the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

1866 – President of the United States of America Andrew Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866. His veto is overridden by Congress and the bill passes into law on April 9.

1886 – Geronimo, Apache warrior, surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.

1912 – First Lady Helen Taft and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, plant two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., the origin of the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

1915 – Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, is put in quarantine for the second time, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

1941 – World War II: Yugoslav Air Force officers topple the pro-Axis government in a bloodless coup 1942 – The Holocaust: Nazi Germany and Vichy France begin the deportation of 65,000 Jews from Drancy internment camp to German extermination camps 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.

1945 – World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways begins. Argentina declares war on the Axis Powers.

1958– Nikita Khrushchev becomes Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.

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.

1975 – Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.

1976 – The first section of the Washington Metro opens to the public.[ 12] 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 deadliest aviation accident in history.

1980 – The Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.[13] 1981 – The Solidarity movement in Poland stages a warning strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walk off their jobs for four hours.

1986 – A car bomb explodes outside Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, Australia, killing one police officer and injuring 21 people.

1990 – The United States begins broadcasting anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba on TV Martí.