What Happened on December 27th in History
30 historical events on this date
The Great Poland Uprising against the Germans begins.
The Greater Poland uprising of 1918–1919, or Wielkopolska uprising of 1918–1919 or Poznań War was a military insurrection of Poles in the Greater Poland region against German rule. The uprising had...
Ukrainian War of Independence: The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine occupies Yekaterinoslav and seizes seven airplanes from the UPRAF, establishing an Insurgent Air Fleet.
The Ukrainian War of Independence, also referred to as the Ukrainian–Soviet War in Ukraine, lasted from March 1917 to November 1921 and was part of the wider Russian Civil War. It saw the...
Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō becomes the first purpose-built aircraft carrier to be commissioned in the world.
Hōshō was the world's first commissioned ship that was built as an aircraft carrier, and the first aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Commissioned in 1922, the ship was used for...
Kern and Hammerstein's musical play Show Boat, considered to be the first true American musical play, opens at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway.
Show Boat is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of...
Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin orders the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class".
The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until the country's dissolution...
Radio City Music Hall, "Showplace of the Nation", opens in New York City.
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and theater at 1260 Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The...
Regina Jonas is ordained as the first female rabbi in the history of Judaism.
Regina Jonas was a Berlin-born Reform rabbi. In 1935, she became the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi. Jonas was murdered in the Holocaust.
The 7.8 Mw Erzincan earthquake shakes eastern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). At least 32,700 people were killed.
An earthquake struck Turkey's eastern Erzincan Province at 1:57:23 a.m. on 27 December 1939 local time with a moment magnitude (Mw ) of 7.8 and maximum Mercalli intensity of XII (Extreme). It is...
Winter War: Finland holds off a Soviet attack in the Battle of Kelja.
The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a...
The International Monetary Fund is created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international financial institution and a specialized agency of the United Nations, headquartered in Washington, D.C. It consists of 191 member countries,...
Indonesian National Revolution: The Netherlands officially recognizes Indonesian independence. End of the Dutch East Indies.
The Indonesian National Revolution, also known as the Indonesian War of Independence, was an armed conflict and diplomatic struggle between the Republic of Indonesia and the Dutch Empire and an...
The Cave of Swallows, the largest known cave shaft in the world, is discovered in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
The Cave of Swallows, also called the Cave of the Swallows, is an open-air pit cave in the municipality of Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico. The elliptical mouth, on a slope of karst, is 49 by 62 m...
Apollo program: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital crewed mission to the Moon.
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived in 1960 in the...
North Central Airlines Flight 458 crashes at O'Hare International Airport, killing 28.
On December 27, 1968, North Central Airlines Flight 458 crashed into a hangar while attempting a night landing in poor weather at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, in the United...
Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of fascist dictatorship.
The Spanish transition to democracy, known in Spain as la Transición or la Transición española, was a period of modern Spanish history encompassing the regime change that moved from the Francoist...
Pope John Paul II visits Mehmet Ali Ağca in Rebibbia's prison and personally forgives him for the 1981 attack on him in St. Peter's Square.
Pope John Paul II was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century,...
Palestinian guerrillas kill eighteen people inside the airports of Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria.
Palestinians are an Arab national group native to the region of Palestine, descended from those who have inhabited the area over the millennia. They represent a highly homogenized community who...
The Romanian Revolution concludes, as the last minor street confrontations and stray shootings abruptly end in the country's capital, Bucharest.
The Romanian revolution was a period of violent civil unrest in the Socialist Republic of Romania during December 1989 as a part of the revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several countries around...
Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 751 crashes in Gottröra in the Norrtälje Municipality in Sweden, injuring 92.
Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 751 was a regularly scheduled Scandinavian Airlines passenger flight from Stockholm, Sweden, to Warsaw, Poland, via Copenhagen, Denmark. On 27 December 1991, a...
Taliban forces retake the strategic Bagram Airfield which solidifies their buffer zone around Kabul, Afghanistan.
The Taliban, officially known as the Islamic Movement of Taliban, also referring to themselves by their state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is the Afghan ruling government, as well as a...
Protestant paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
William Stephen Wright, known as King Rat, was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary leader who founded the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) during The Troubles. Wright had joined the Ulster...
Burger King and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission order a recall of plastic Poké Ball containers after they are determined to be a choking hazard.
Burger King Corporation is an American fast food chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The company was founded on July 23, 1953, as Insta-Burger...
Two truck bombs kill 72 and wound 200 at the pro-Moscow headquarters of the Chechen government in Grozny, Chechnya, Russia.
The Grozny truck bombing occurred on 27 December 2002, when three Chechen suicide bombers ran vehicles into the heavily guarded republic's government headquarters in the regional capital Grozny.
Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.
In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or a material medium. This includes:electromagnetic radiation consisting of photons,...
Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in a shooting incident.
A prime minister, also known as a chief of cabinet, chief minister, first minister, minister-president or premier, is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch...
Riots erupt in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of the presidential election, triggering a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.
Mombasa is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital status in 1907. It now serves as the...
Operation Cast Lead: Israel launches three-week operation on Gaza.
The Gaza War, also known as the First Gaza War, Operation Cast Lead, or the Gaza Massacre, and referred to as the Battle of al-Furqan by Hamas, was a three-week armed conflict between Gaza Strip...
Iranian election protests: On the Day of Ashura in Tehran, Iran, government security forces fire upon demonstrators.
After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests broke out in major cities across Iran in support of opposition candidates...
Bek Air Flight 2100 crashes during takeoff from Almaty International Airport in Almaty, Kazakhstan, killing 13.
Bek Air Flight 2100 was a domestic passenger flight from Almaty to Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, operated by a Fokker 100 that crashed on 27 December 2019 while taking off from Almaty International...
An estimated €30 million were stolen from a Sparkasse bank in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
In December 2025, items worth an estimated €30 million were stolen from a Sparkasse bank in Buer, a suburb of Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The thieves used a large drill to break into the bank's...