On March 27th...

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1309 Pope Clement V excommunicated the entire population of Venice.

1513 Juan Ponce de León sighted Florida.

1625 King James I of England died.

1668 King Charles II of England gave Bombay to the East India Company.

1713 Spain lost Menorca and Gibraltar to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht.

1785 King Louis XVII of France was born.

1790 The shoelace with an aglet was patented in England by Harvey Kennedy.

1794 President George Washington signed legislation authorizing the building of ships for a U. S. Navy.

1802 The Treaty of Amiens was signed, ending the French Revolutionary War.

1813 Lithographer Nathaniel Currier was born.

1814 Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

1836 The first Mormon temple was dedicated, in Kirtland, Ohio.

1841 The first U. S.-built steam fire engine was tested in New York City, New York.

1845 Physicist Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen was born.

1848 John Parker Paynard developed medicated adhesive plaster.

1849 Joseph Couch patented a steam-powered percussion rock drill.

1852 Nicolas Adolphus Sterne, early Texas entrepreneur, died.

1854 The United Kingdom declared war on Russia.

1855 Abraham Gesner patented kerosene.

1860 M. L. Bryn patented the corkscrew.

1866 Andrew Rankin patented the urinal.

1884 The first long-distance telephone call was placed, New York-to-Boston.

1890 A tornado struck Louisville, Kentucky, killing 76 persons and injuring 200.

1897 Actress Gloria Swanson was born.

1901 Eisaku Sato, Prime Minister of Japan, was born.

1910 Fire during a barn dance in Ököritófülpös, Hungary, killed 312 persons.

1912 The first Japanese cherry trees were planted in Washington, D. C.

1914 The first successful blood transfusion was performed in Brussels, Belgium.

1923 Chemist/physicist Sir James Dewar died.

1939 Oregon defeated Ohio State 46-33 in the first ever NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.
1939 Automobile racer Cale Yarborough was born.

1945 Oklahoma State defeated NYU 49-44 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

1951 Kentucky defeated Kansas 68-58 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

1952 Businessman Kiichiro Toyoda died.

1953 A train crash in Conneaut, Ohio, killed 21 persons.

1963 Film director Quentin Tarantino was born.

1964 An earthquake killed at least 66 persons in Alaska.

1968 Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was killed in an aircraft training accident.

1969 Mariner 7 was launched toward Mars.
1969 Singer Mariah Carey was born.

1971 UCLA defeated Villanova 68-62 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.
1971 Actor Nathan Fillion was born.

1972 Lithographer M.C. Escher died.

1977 Two jumbo jets collided on a runway at Los Rodeos Airport on Tenerife, Canary Islands, killing 583 persons.

1978 Kentucky defeated Duke 94-88 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

1980 An elevator failure in a gold mine at Vaal Reefs, South Africa, killed 23 miners.
1980 The Norwegian oil platform Alexander Kielland collapsed in the North Sea, killing 123 of its 212-person crew.

1990 A bus accidentally touched a high voltage wire in Karagpur, India, killing 21 persons.

1991 Actor Aldo Ray died.

1994 Nineteen persons were killed when a tornado struck a church in Piedmont, Alabama.

2000 An explosion at a Phillips refinery in Pasadena, Texas, killed 1 person and injured 71.

2002 A suicide bomber killed 29 persons in Netanya, Israel.
2002 Comedian Milton Berle died.
2002 Actor Dudley Moore died.
2002 Film director Billy Wilder died.

2009 Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, failed, killing at least 99 people.

2016 A suicide bomber killed morethan 70 people at a park in Lahore, Pakistan.

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This page was last updated on March 27, 2018.