27 March 2025 (MIA)

– World Theatre Day

87 BC – Crown Prince Fuling, later Emperor Zhao of Han, is named as Emperor Wu of Han’s successor and heir to the throne. Emperor Wu dies two days later.

1309 – Pope Clement V imposes excommunication, interdiction, and a general prohibition of all commercial intercourse against Venice, which had unjustly seized on Ferrara, a fief of the Patrimony of Peter.

1329 – Pope John XXII issues his In Agro Dominico condemning some writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical.

1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León reaches the northern end of The Bahamas on his first voyage to Florida.

1613 – The first English child born in Canada at Cuper’s Cove, Newfoundland to Nicholas Guy.

1625 – Charles I becomes King of England, Scotland and Ireland as well as claiming the title King of France.

1782 – Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

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

1794 – Denmark and Sweden form a neutrality compact.

1809 – Peninsular War: A combined Franco-Polish force defeats the Spanish in the Battle of Ciudad Real.

1812 – Hugh McGary Jr. establishes what is now Evansville, Indiana on a bend in the Ohio River.

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

1836 – Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre: On the orders of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican army butchers 342 Texas POWs at Goliad, Texas.

1851 – First reported sighting of the Yosemite Valley by Europeans.

1871 – The first international rugby football match, when Scotland defeats England in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.

1881 – Rioting takes place in Basingstoke in protest against the daily vociferous promotion of teetotalism by The Salvation Army.

1884 – A mob in Cincinnati, Ohio, attacks members of a jury who had returned a verdict of manslaughter in a clear case of murder, and then over the next few days would riot and destroy the courthouse.

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

1890 – A tornado strikes Louisville, Kentucky, killing 76 and injuring 200.

1899 – Emilio Aguinaldo leads Filipino forces for the only time during the Philippine–American War at the Battle of Marilao River.

1910 – A fire during a barn-dance in Ököritófülpös, Hungary, kills 312.

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

1918 – Bessarabia is ceded to the Kingdom of Romania.

1938 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Taierzhuang begins, resulting several weeks later in the war’s first major Chinese victory over Japan.

1941 – World War II: Yugoslavian Air Force officers topple the pro-Axis government in a bloodless coup.

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.

1948 – The Second Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea is convened.

1958 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.

1963 – Beeching Axe: Dr. Richard Beeching issues a report calling for huge cuts to the United Kingdom’s rail network.

1964 – The Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. 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 4.6 miles of the Washington Metro subway system opens.

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 worst aviation accident in history.

1980 – The Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.

1980 – Silver Thursday: A steep fall in silver prices, resulting from the Hunt Brothers attempting to corner the market in silver, leads to panic on commodity and futures exchanges.

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 at Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, killing one police officer and injuring 21 people.

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

1992 – Republic of Macedonia assumes control over its entire territory after President Kiro Gligorov and Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) General Nikola Uzelac signed an agreement in Skopje.

1993 – Jiang Zemin is appointed President of the People’s Republic of China.

1993 – Italian former minister and Christian Democracy leader Giulio Andreotti is accused of mafia allegiance by the tribunal of Palermo.

1998 – The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.

1999 – Kosovo War: Yugoslav SAM downed F-117A, the first and only kill of the stealth aircraft.

2000 – A Phillips Petroleum plant explosion in Pasadena, Texas kills one and injures 71.

2002 – Passover massacre: A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 29 people partaking of the Passover meal in Netanya, Israel.

2002 – Nanterre massacre: In Nanterre, France, a gunman opens fire at the end of a town council meeting, resulting in the deaths of eight councilors and the injury of 19 others.

2004 – HMS Scylla, a decommissioned Leander-class frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.

2009 – The dam forming Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, fails, killing at least 99 people.

2009 – A suicide bomber kills at least 48 at a mosque in the Khyber Agency of Pakistan.

2013 – A 6.0-magnitude earthquake strikes near Taipei, Taiwan, injuring 97 people.

2013 – Canada becomes the first country to announce its intention to withdraw from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

2014 – Philippines signs a peace accord with the largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, ending decades of conflict.

2015 – Al-Shabab militants attack and temporarily occupy a Mogadishu hotel leaving at least 20 people dead.