What Happened on March 27th in History
30 historical events on this date
Japanese invasion of Manchuria: Japan leaves the League of Nations after it approves the Lytton Report that ruled in favour of China.
The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded the Manchuria region of China on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden incident, a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as...
Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Taierzhuang begins, resulting several weeks later in the war's first major Chinese victory over Japan.
The Second Sino-Japanese War, known in China as the War of Resistance Against Japan, was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan and its puppet states between 1937 and 1945,...
World War II: Yugoslav Air Force officers topple the pro-Axis government in a bloodless coup.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
The Holocaust: Nazi Germany and Vichy France begin the deportation of 65,000 Jews from Drancy internment camp to German extermination camps.
The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million...
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.
The Battle of the Komandorski Islands was a naval battle between American and Imperial Japanese forces which took place on 27 March 1943 in the North Pacific, south of the Soviet Komandorski...
World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways begins. Argentina declares war on the Axis Powers.
Operation Starvation was a naval mining operation conducted in World War II by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) to disrupt Japanese shipping.
Nikita Khrushchev becomes Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. As leader of the...
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.
The 1964 Alaska earthquake, also known as the Great Alaska earthquake and Good Friday earthquake, occurred at 5:36 PM AKST on Good Friday, March 27, 1964. Across south-central Alaska, ground...
Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is an oil transportation system spanning Alaska, including the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 12 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines,...
The first section of the Washington Metro opens to the public.
The Washington Metro, often abbreviated as the Metro and formally the Metrorail, is a rapid transit system serving the Washington metropolitan area of the United States. It is administered by the...
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.
On 27 March 1977, two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on a runway at Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife, killing 583 people and injuring 61 others in the deadliest accident in...
The Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.
Alexander L. Kielland was a Norwegian semi-submersible drilling rig that, on 27 March 1980, capsized in the Ekofisk oil field in the North Sea, killing 123 people. The capsize was the worst disaster...
The Solidarity movement in Poland stages a warning strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walk off their jobs for four hours.
Solidarity, full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity", is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in GdaĹsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first...
A car bomb explodes outside Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, Australia, killing one police officer and injuring 21 people.
A car bomb, bus bomb, van bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an...
The United States begins broadcasting anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba on TV MartĂ.
The Cuban dissident movement, also known as the Cuban democracy movement or simply the Cuban opposition, is a political movement in Cuba whose for aim is to start a democratic transition in Cuba. It...
Jiang Zemin is appointed President of China.
Jiang Zemin was a Chinese politician who served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as the chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004,...
Italian former minister and Christian Democracy leader Giulio Andreotti is accused of mafia allegiance by the tribunal of Palermo.
Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic political party in Italy. The DC was founded on 15 December 1943 in the Italian Social Republic as the nominal successor of the Italian People's Party,...
The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for erectile dysfunction, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health...
Kosovo War: An American Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk is shot down by a Yugoslav Army SAM, the first and only Nighthawk to be lost in combat.
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), which controlled...
A Phillips Petroleum plant explosion in Pasadena, Texas kills one person and injures 71 others.
At approximately 1:22Â p.m. CT on March 27, 2000, an explosion and fire responsible for one death and 71 injuries occurred at Phillips Petroleum's Houston Chemical Complex at 1400 Jefferson Road in...
Passover massacre: A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 29 people at a Passover seder in Netanya, Israel.
The Passover massacre was a suicide bombing carried out by Hamas at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel on 27 March 2002, during a Passover seder. 30 civilians were killed in the attack and 140 were...
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.
The Nanterre massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on 27 March 2002, at the HĂ´tel de Ville in Nanterre, France. Gunman Richard Durn opened fire at the end of a town council meeting, resulting...
HMSÂ Scylla, a decommissioned Leander-class frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.
HMS Scylla (F71) was the last Leander-class frigate built for the Royal Navy (RN). She was the fifth vessel in the Royal Navy to be named after the Sea Monster who devoured the victims of the...
The dam forming Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, fails, killing at least 99 people.
Situ Gintung is an artificial lake near to the town of Cirendeu in the city of South Tangerang, Indonesia. It was formed by a dam up to 16Â m (52Â ft) high which was built by Dutch colonial...
Philippines signs a peace accord with the largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, ending decades of conflict.
The Government of the Philippines has three interdependent branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The Philippines is governed as a unitary state under a presidential...
Al-Shabab militants attack and temporarily occupy a Mogadishu hotel leaving at least 20 people dead.
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, simply known as Al-Shabaab, is a Sunni Islamist political and militant organization based in Somalia. It is involved in the ongoing Somali Civil War and controls...
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.
On 27 March 2016, on Easter Sunday, at least 75 people were killed, and over 340 were injured, in a suicide bombing that hit the main entrance of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, one of the largest parks in...
North Macedonia becomes the 30th member of NATO.
North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east,...
Seven people, including the perpetrator, are killed in a mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.
On March 27, 2023, a mass shooting occurred at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian Church in America parochial elementary school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, United...
Forty people are killed in a fire at a migrant detention facility in Ciudad JuĂĄrez, Mexico.
On 27 March 2023, a fire occurred at an immigration detention center in Ciudad JuĂĄrez, Chihuahua, Mexico, near the border with the United States. The fire killed 40 people and left 27 others...