What Happened on October 27th in History
30 historical events on this date
The Fourth Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents is held by the Makhnovshchina at Oleksandrivsk.
The Regional Congresses of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents represented the "highest form of democratic authority" within the political system of the Makhnovshchina. They brought together delegates...
A referendum in Rhodesia rejects the country's annexation to the South African Union.
A referendum on the status of Southern Rhodesia was held in the colony on 27 October 1922. Voters, almost all of them white, were given the options of establishing responsible government or joining...
The Uzbek SSR is founded in the Soviet Union.
The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (UzSSR), also known as Soviet Uzbekistan, the Uzbek SSR, or simply Uzbekistan and rarely Uzbekia, was a union republic of the Soviet Union. It was governed by the...
Ratifications are exchanged in London for the first London Naval Treaty go into effect immediately, further limiting the expensive naval arms race among its five signatories.
The London Naval Treaty, officially the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament, was an agreement between the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, and the United States that was...
Abdication Crisis: Mrs. Wallis Simpson obtains her divorce, which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.
In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and...
World War II: German forces capture Banská Bystrica during Slovak National Uprising thus bringing it to an end.
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...
A deadly smog event begins in Donora, Pennsylvania, eventually killing 20 and sickening thousands.
The 1948 Donora smog, also called the Donora death fog, was an air pollution disaster that occurred in Donora, Pennsylvania, beginning on October 27, 1948, and lasting several days. It was caused by...
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.
Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr. was a United States Air Force (USAF) general and commander of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen.
Iskander Mirza, the first President of Pakistan, is deposed by General Ayub Khan, who had been appointed the enforcer of martial law by Mirza 20 days earlier.
Iskander Ali Mirza was a Pakistani politician and military general who served as the fourth and last governor-general of Pakistan from 1955 to 1956, and then as the first president of Pakistan from...
NASA tests the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.
Saturn-Apollo 1 (SA-1) was the first flight of the Saturn I space launch vehicle, the first in the Saturn family, and first mission of the American Apollo program. The rocket was launched on October...
Major Rudolf Anderson of the United States Air Force becomes the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane is shot down over Cuba by a Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missile.
Rudolf Anderson Jr. was an American Air Force major and pilot. He was the first recipient of the Air Force Cross, the U.S. military's and Air Force's second-highest award and decoration for valor....
By refusing to agree to the firing of a nuclear torpedo at a US warship, Vasily Arkhipov averts nuclear war.
Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov, also transliterated as Vasili Arkhipov, was a vice admiral in the Soviet Navy. He is best remembered for preventing nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of the Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launches his political career and comes to be known as "A Time for Choosing".
Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in...
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is renamed Zaire.
The Republic of the Congo or First Congolese Republic, formerly the Belgian Congo and now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was a state in Central Africa that gained independence in 1960...
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sometimes known simply as Saint Vincent or SVG, is an archipelagic country in the eastern Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser...
The Chun Doo-hwan government forcibly arrests and investigates monks and personnel of the Jogye Order.
Chun Doo-hwan was a South Korean army general and politician who served as the fifth president of South Korea from 1980 to 1988. A member of the Democratic Justice Party, he ruled the country as a...
Cold War: The Soviet submarine S-363 runs aground on the east coast of Sweden.
The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist...
The British government suddenly deregulates financial markets, leading to a total restructuring of the way in which they operate in the country, in an event now referred to as the Big Bang.
The phrase Big Bang, used in reference to the sudden deregulation of financial markets, was coined to describe measures, including abolition of fixed commission charges and of the distinction...
Cold War: Ronald Reagan suspends construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow due to Soviet listening devices in the building structure.
The Embassy of the United States of America in Moscow is the diplomatic mission of the United States of America in the Russian Federation. The current embassy compound is in the Presnensky District...
Turkmenistan achieves independence from the Soviet Union.
Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the north, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, and the Caspian Sea to the...
United States Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is murdered by shipmate Terry M. Helvey for being gay, precipitating debate about gays in the military that results in the United States' "Don't ask, don't tell" military policy.
Allen R. Schindler Jr. was an American radioman petty officer third class in the United States Navy who was murdered for being gay. He was killed in a public toilet in Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan, by...
Widerøe Flight 744 crashes in Overhalla Municipality, Norway, killing six people.
Widerøe Flight 744, also known as the Namsos Accident, was a scheduled flight of Widerøes Flyveselskap from Trondheim Airport, Værnes, via Namsos, to Rørvik Airport, Ryumsjøen, Norway. On 27 October...
Gliese 229B is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified.
Gliese 229 is a multiple system composed of a red dwarf and two brown dwarfs, located 18.8 light-years away. It is the nearest star system in the constellation Lepus. The primary component has 58%...
The 1997 Asian financial crisis causes a crash in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The 1997 Asian financial crisis gripped much of East and Southeast Asia during the late 1990s. The crisis began in Thailand in July 1997 before spreading to several other countries with a ripple...
Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing the Prime Minister and seven others.
The 1999 Armenian parliament shooting, commonly known in Armenia as October 27, was an attack on the Armenian National Assembly in the capital of Yerevan on 27 October 1999 by a group of five armed...
Britain withdraws from Afghanistan at the end of Operation Herrick, after 12 years four months and seven days.
Operation Herrick was the operational name for the British Armed Forces' operations during the War in Afghanistan, from 2002 to the end of combat operations in 2014. It consisted of the British...
Catalonia declares independence from Spain.
Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy. Its territory is situated on the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, to the south of the...
A gunman opens fire on a Pittsburgh synagogue killing eleven and injuring six, including four police officers.
On October 27, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The congregation, along with New...
Leicester City F.C. owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha dies in a helicopter crash along with four others after a Premier League match against West Ham United at the King Power Stadium in Leicester, England.
Leicester City Football Club is a professional football club based in Leicester, East Midlands, England. The club competes in EFL League One, the third tier of English football, following relegation...
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant founder and leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi kills himself and three children by detonating a suicide vest during the U.S. military Barisha raid in northwestern Syria.
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and by its Arabic acronym Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist...