March 27

Events

• 1306 - Robert I of Scotland and Elizabeth de Burgh are crowned king and Queen of the Scots.
• 1513 - (not 1512 as often cited) - Explorer Juan Ponce de León sights North America (specifically Florida) for the first time, mistaking it for another island.
• 1625 - Charles I becomes King of England and Scotland.
• 1782 - Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• 1794 - The government of the United States establishes a permanent United States Navy and authorizes the building of six frigatess.
• 1794 - Denmark and Sweden form a neutrality compact.
• 1814 - War of 1812: In northern Alabama, United States forces under General Andrew Jackson defeat the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
• 1836 - Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre - Antonio López de Santa Anna orders the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texanss at Goliad, Texas.
• 1846 - Mexican-American War: Siege of Fort Texas.
• 1851 - First reported case of Europeans seeing Yosemite Valley.
• 1871 - First international rugby football match, England v. Scotland, played in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.
• 1918 - Moldova and Bessarabia join Romania.
• 1923 - FART construction completed.
• 1938 - Battle of Tai er zhuang
• 1941 - Britain supports Peter II of Yugoslavia in a coup in Yugoslavia.
• 1942 - World War II: United Kingdom forces raid the U-boat base at St. Nazaire, France.
• 1945 - World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways begins.
• 1952 - Sun Records begins operations.
• 1958 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.
• 1963 - Dr Beeching issues a report calling for huge cuts to the United Kingdom's rail network. See Beeching axe.
• 1964 - The Good Friday Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes South Central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.
• 1969 - Mariner 7 is launched.
• 1976 - The first 4.6 miles of the Washington, DC subway system is opened.
• 1977 - Tenerife disaster: Two jumbo jets collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583.
• 1980 - The Norwegian oil platform Alexander Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.
• 1986 - Car bomb explodes at Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, killing 1 police officer.
• 1988 - Moudud Ahmed becomes Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
• 1989 - Generations, the first American soap opera to have an entire black family in its original core cast, commences telecasts on NBC.
• 1990 - Propaganda: The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí to Cuba.
• 1993 - Jiang Zemin is appointed President of the People's Republic of China.
• 1993 - Albert Zafy becomes President of Madagascar.
• 1993 - Mahamane Ousmane becomes President of Niger.
• 1994 - One of the biggest tornado outbreaks in recent memory hits the Southeastern United States. One tornado slams into a church in Piedmont, Alabama during Palm Sunday services killing 20 and injuring 90.
• 2002 - Passover Massacre: A suicide bomber kills 28 people in Netanya, Israel.
• 2003 - An explosion in the Nitrochimie dynamite factory in Billy-Berclau, France kills 4 people.
• 2004 - HMS Scylla, a decommissioned Leander frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.
  

  Births

• 972 - King Robert I of France (d. 1031)
• 1730 - Thomas Tyrwhitt, English classical scholar (d. 1786)
• 1746 - Michael Bruce, Scottish poet (d. 1767)
• 1765 - Franz Xaver von Baader, German philosopher and theologian (d. 1841)
• 1785 - King Louis XVII of France (d. 1795)
• 1797 - Alfred de Vigny, French author (d. 1863)
• 1809 - Baron Haussmann, French civic planner
• 1810 - William Hepworth Thompson, English classical scholar (d. 1886)
• 1813 - Nathaniel Currier, illustrator
• 1817 - Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli, Swiss biologist (d. 1891)
• 1845 - Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, physicist, winner of the first Nobel Prize in physics 1901 (d. 1923)
• 1847 - Otto Wallach, German chemist and Nobel Prize winner (d. 1931)
• 1851 - Vincent d'Indy, French composer and teacher (d. 1931)
• 1857 - Karl Pearson, statistician (d. 1936)
• 1860 - Frank Frost Abbott, American classical scholar (d. 1924)
• 1863 - Sir Henry Royce, English automobile pioneer (d. 1933)
• 1869 - James McNeill, Irish politician
• 1871 - Heinrich Mann, narrator, dramatist and essayist (d. 1950)
• 1886 - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect (d. 1969)
• 1893 - Karl Mannheim, Hungarian sociologist (d. 1947)
• 1899 - Gloria Swanson, actress (d. 1983)
• 1901 - Carl Barks, Donald Duck illustrator (d. 2000)
• 1901 - Sato Eisaku, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1975)
• 1901 - Sasaki Naojiro, Japanese author (d. 1943)
• 1901 - Erich Ollenhauer, politician (d. 1963)
• 1905 - Elsie MacGill, aeronautical engineer, "Queen of the Hurricanes" (d. 1980)
• 1906 - Pee Wee Russell, US jazz musician (d. 1969)
• 1907 - Mary Treen, American actress (d. 1989)
• 1909 - Golo Mann, historian and publicist (d. 1994)
• 1910 - John Pierce, electrical engineer
• 1912 - James Callaghan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 2005)
• 1914 - Budd Schulberg, screenwriter and novelist
• 1914 - Snooky Lanson, American singer (d. 1990)
• 1914 - Richard Denning, American actor (d. 1998)
• 1915 - Junior Lockwood, American blues musician
• 1917 - Cyrus Vance, US politician (d. 2002)
• 1921 - Harold Nicholas, American dancer (d. 2000)
• 1922 - Pierre Pairault aka Stefan Wul, French author (d. 2003)
• 1923 - Louis Simpson, poet
• 1923 - Endo Shusaku, Catholic Japanese author (d. 1996)
• 1924 - Sarah Vaughan, singer (d. 1990)
• 1927 - Mstislav Rostropovich, conductor, musician
• 1931 - David Janssen, actor (d. 1980)
• 1931 - Walter Kieber, Liechtenstein Head of Government (d. 1978)
• 1935 - Julian Glover, British actor
• 1939 - Cale Yarborough, NASCAR race car driver
• 1940 - Austin Pendleton, American actor
• 1942 - Michael York, actor
• 1947 - Brian Jones, British balloonist
• 1950 - Tony Banks, musician of Genesis
• 1952 - Maria Schneider, French actress
• 1954 - Wally Stocker, musician of The Babys
• 1957 - Nick Hawkins, British politician
• 1959 - Andrew Farriss, musician of INXS
• 1961 - Tak Matsumoto, Japanese guitarist(B'z)
• 1962 - Jann Arden, Canadian musician
• 1963 - Quentin Tarantino, actor, director, writer, producer
• 1963 - Xuxa, television personality
• 1967 - Talisa Soto, actress
• 1968 - Sadie Frost, British actress
• 1970 - Mariah Carey, singer
• 1970 - Brendan Hill, musician ("Blues Traveler")
• 1970 - Princess Leila of Iran (d. 2001)
• 1971 - David Coulthard, Formula One racing driver
• 1975 - Fergie, American musician (Black Eyed Peas)
• 1986 - Baby M

  Deaths

• 1191 - Pope Clement III
• 1350 - King Alfonso XI of Castile, (b. 1312)
• 1378 - Pope Gregory XI, (b. c. 1336)
• 1555 - William Hunter (Protestant martyr)
• 1615 - Margaret of Valois, queen of Henry IV of France (b. 1553)
• 1625 - King James I of England and Ireland, James VI of Scotland (b. 1566)
• 1635 - Robert Naunton, English politician, (b. 1563)
• 1757 - Johann Stamitz, Czech composer and violinist, (b. 1717)
• 1770 - Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, (b. 1696)
• 1809 - Joseph-Marie Vien, French painter, (b. 1716)
• 1827 - François Alexandre Frédéric, duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, (b. 1747)
• 1836 - James Fannin, Texas Revolutionary (b. 1804)
• 1843 - Karl Salomo Zachariae von Lingenthal, German jurist, (b. 1769)
• 1849 - Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford, (b. 1776)
• 1850 - Wilhelm Beer, astronomer, (b. 1797)
• 1864 - Jean-Jacques Ampère, French scholar, (b. 1800)
• 1865 - Petrus Hoffman Peerlkamp, Dutch scholar, (b. 1786)
• 1873 - Amedée Simon Dominique Thierry, French journalist and historian, (b. 1797)
• 1875 - Edgar Quinet, French historian, (b. 1803)
• 1878 - Sir George Gilbert Scott, architect, (b. 1811)
• 1889 - John Bright, (b. 1811)
• 1910 - Alexander Emanuel Agassiz, US scientist and engineer, (b. 1835)
• 1918 - Henry Adams, historian and novelist, (b. 1838)
• 1923 - Sir James Dewar, chemist, (b. 1842)
• 1924 - Walter Parratt, composer, (b. 1841)
• 1927 - Joe Start, baseball player, (b. 1842)
• 1931 - Arnold Bennett, British novelist, (b. 1867)
• 1940 - Michael Joseph Savage, Prime Minister of New Zealand, (b. 1872)
• 1967 - Jim Thompson (designer), disappeared, (b. 1906)
• 1968 - Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, (b. 1934)
• 1969 - B. Traven, writer
• 1972 - M. C. Escher, Dutch artist, (b. 1898)
• 1972 - Sharkey Bonano, jazz musician, (b. 1904)
• 1977 - A. P. Hamann, American politician
• 1977 - Diana Hyland, American actress
• 1991 - Ralph Bates, British actor, (b. 1940)
• 1991 - Aldo Ray, American actor
• 1992 - Easley Blackwood, (b. 1903)
• 1993 - Paul Laszlo, interior designer, architect, (b. 1900)
• 1998 - David McClelland, psychological theorist, (b. 1917)
• 1998 - Ferry Porsche, founder of Porsche car manufacturer, (b. 1909)
• 2000 - Ian Dury, English rock musician, (b. 1942)
• 2002 - Milton Berle, actor, comedian, (b. 1908)
• 2002 - Dudley Moore, actor, musician, composer (b. 1935)
• 2002 - Billy Wilder, director, (b. 1906)
• 2003 - Ricardo Munguia, aid worker in Afghanistan
• 2003 - Joseph Menusa, first soldier from the Philippines to die in the 2003 Iraq War, (b. 1970)
• 2003 - Paul Zindel, American author and playwright
• 2005 - Bob Casey, long-time Public Address announcer for the Minnesota Twins, (b. 1925)
  

  Holidays and observances

• 2005, 2016: Easter
• Angolan Victory Day
• Feast day of Rupert of Salzburg in the Roman Catholic Church

  External links

• BBC: On This Day

March 26 - March 28 - February 27 - April 27 -- listing of all days