In Calendar Form

September 27

1290 An earthquake in the Gulf of Chili, China kills an estimated 100,000 people.

1601 Birth: Louis XIII, king of France (1610-43).

1657 Birth: Sophia, regent of Russia (1682-89).

1669 The Island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea falls to the Ottoman Turks after a 21-year siege.

1722 Birth: Samuel Adams. "Samuel and John Adams' names are almost synonymous in all accounts of the Revolution that grew, largely, out of Boston. Though they were cousins and not brothers, they were often referred to as the Adams' brothers, or simply as the Adams'. Samuel Adams was born in Boston, son of a merchant and brewer. He was an excellent politician, an unsuccessful brewer, and a poor businessman. His early public office as a tax collector might have made him suspect as an agent of British authority, however he made good use of his understanding of the tax codes and wide acquaintance with the merchants of Boston. Samuel was a very visible popular leader who, along with John, spend a great deal of time in the public eye agitating for resistance. In 1765 he was elected to the Massachusetts Assembly where he served as clerk for many years. It was there that he was the first to propose a continental congress. He was a leading advocate of republicanism and a good friend of Tom Paine. In 1774, he was chosen to be a member of the provincial council during the crisis in Boston. He was then appointed as a representative to the Continental Congress, where he was most noted for his oratory skills, and as a passionate advocate of independence from Britain. In 1776, as a delegate to the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence. Adams retired from the Congress in 1781 and returned to Massachusetts to become a leading member of that states convention to form a constitution. In 1789 he was appointed lieutenant governor of the state. In 1794 he was elected Governor, and was re-elected annually until 1797 when he retired for health reasons. He died in the morning of October 2, 1803, in his home town of Boston."

1772 Birth: Sondor Kisfaludy, in Hungary, poet, Austrian army (1793-1801).

1777 US Revolutionary War: The Battle of Germantown. "...a detachment of British troops under Lord Charles Cornwallis occupied Philadelphia. This event climaxed a month-long campaign during which 18,000 British and Hessian soldiers under General William Howe had landed at the northern end of Chesapeake Bay, defeated George Washington's forces at the Battle of Brandywine, and evaded all subsequent American attempts to block their progress toward the American capital. But Howe remained wary of the Americans, who were camped only thirty miles northwest of Philadelphia along Perkiomen Creek between Pennypacker's Mills and Trappe. Accordingly, he put the bulk of his remaining force-some 9,000-10,000 troops-at Germantown, five miles above Philadelphia, covering the likely avenues of approach from Washington's position..."

1779 US Revolutionary War: John Adams is elected to negotiate with the British over the American Revolutionary War peace terms.

1783 Birth: Agustini de Iturbide, emperor of Mexico (1822-23).

1785 The Protestant Episcopal Church in the US is founded, following the American Revolutionary War, when US Anglicans meet in Philadelphia to create a denomination independent from and autonomous of the Church of England.

1791 Jews in France are granted French citizenship.

1792 Birth: George Cruikshank, in England; pioneering political cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator for Charles Dickens.

1817 Birth: Hiram R. Revels, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, 1st black US senator.

1821 The Mexican Empire declares its independence as a revolutionary force occupies Mexico City while the Spanish withdraw.

1840 Birth: Alfred Thayer Mahan, US navy admiral; will write 'The Influence of Seapower on History' and other books that will encourage world leaders to build larger navies.

1840 Birth: Thomas Nast, caricaturist, political cartoonist of late 1800s America, will create the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant.

1854 The steamship Arctic sinks with 300 people aboard.

1858 Birth: Giuseppe Peano, Italian mathematician, founder of symbolic logic.

1862 Birth: Louis Botha, commander-in-chief of the Boar Army against the British and first president of South Africa.

1864 US Civil War: Confederate guerrilla Bloody Bill Anderson and his henchmen, including a teenage Jesse James, massacre 20 unarmed Union soldiers at Centralia, Missouri in an event that will become known as the Centralia Massacre.

1869 Wild Bill Hickok, sheriff of Hays City, Kansas, shoots down Samuel Strawhim, a drunken teamster causing trouble.

1877 John Mercer Langston is named minister of Haiti.

1888 Jack the Ripper: The Central News Agency receives a letter signed Jack the Ripper; the first time the name had been used.

1914 WW1: Heavy fighting at Artois until October 10.

1916 WW1: Constance of Greece declares war on Bulgaria.

1918 WW1: Haig's British army group flings itself against the Hindenburg line; but the drive soon slows down, in the face of a skillful German defense.

1918 WW1: On Allenby's desert flank to the east, T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and King Faisal cut the railway line at Deraa, while Allenby continues to press on toward Damascus.

1918 Birth: Sir Martin Ryle, in Britain, radio astronomer, astronomer royal 1972-82.

1918 WW1: President Woodrow Wilson opens his fourth Liberty Loan campaign to support men and machines for WW1.

1919 The Democratic National Committee votes to admit women into the party.

1923 Fourteen mass demonstrations Hitler's NSDAP had planned to hold are banned by the Bavarian strong man, Gustav Kahr.

1928 The US announces that it will recognize the Nationalist Chinese Government.

1933 Church and Reich: Ludwig Müller (Mueller), bishop of Prussia and a confidant of Hitler, is named Reichsbishop.

1933 The Canadian garment industry joins the anti-Nazi boycott.

1935 Volkishness: Otto Rahn (above) writes a letter to Weisthor (Wiligut) excitedly describing the places he has been visiting in his hunt for grail traditions in Germany. Rahn asks for complete confidence in the matter with the exception of Himmler. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)

1935 Holocaust: Waldemar Gurian, a German Catholic writer in exile, writes that the Nuremberg ordinances are "only a stage on the way toward the complete physical destruction of the Jews." (Lewy)

1936 Holocaust: The Gestapo closes the Association of Independent Artisans of the Jewish Faith, a German Jewish mutual aid society.

1937 Holocaust: The Romanian government prohibits Zionist fundraising nationwide.

1938 Sudeten Crisis: Hitler again warns that he will crush Czechoslovakia if his demands concerning the Sudetenland are not met.

1938 Sudeten Crisis: Sep 27-28 The British Home Fleet is mobilized in response to the Czechoslovakian crisis.

1938 Holocaust: The fifth ordinance under the Reich Citizenship act closes the legal professions to Jewish lawyers in the German states.

1938 Holocaust: Police in Denmark adopt strict measures to prevent illegal Jewish immigrants from entering their country.

1939 Holocaust: The RSHA begins operation. Eventually it will become responsible for carrying out the Endloesung der Judenfrage (final solution of the Jewish Question).

1939 WW2: Warsaw surrenders to the Germans after undergoing 36 hours of Luftwaffe bombing, strafings and artillery fire. Thousands of civilians are killed including an estimated 3,000 Jews.

1939 Holocaust: Near Grabowiec, 150 Polish policemen, 4 NCOs and 6 officers among 5,000 taken prisoner, are executed by the Soviets with the aid of Ukrainian and Jewish militias.

1939 WW2: "Pray examine and advise upon a proposal to establish a minefield, blocking Norwegian territorial waters at some lonely spot on the coast as far north as convenient. If the Norwegians will do this themselves, well and good. Otherwise a plan must be made for us to do it." (British First Lord to First Sea Lord and others, 27 September 1939)

1939 The Bulgarian government moves to suppress growing anti-Semitic violence.

1940 WW2: Sep 27-28 Germany, Italy and Japan sign a 10-year military and economic alliance, the Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis. Hitler regards Japan as a buffer against the US and a distraction for the USSR. Japan takes advantage of the situation and quickly occupies northern French Indochina (Vietnam).

1941 Holocaust: Himmler comes through with a long-delayed promotion of Heydrich to Obergruppenfuehrer (Lieutenant General) and general of the police. (Architect)

1942 WW2: Australian forces defeat the Japanese on New Guinea in the South Pacific.

1944 WW2: Thousands of British troops are killed as German forces rebuff their massive effort to capture the Arnhem Bridge across the Rhine River in Holland.

1944 Diary of Leon Gladun: I stop off with Jurek at Cassino where we spent two days. Anna is moving to Rome where her father works for the railway. I've discovered that the girl has gotten plump. If it keeps going it could be disastrous as she wasn't too skinny to start off with. And what will happen when the food improves when she put on weight during such poverty? It's damn inconvenient that her family still live under the same roof--what can a poor guy do? Maybe there'll be another chance to go to Rome which might be more convenient. After returning from Rome Jurek and I spent a few more days at Cassette d'Ete.

1945 Birth: Stephanie Pogue, artist and art professor.

1950 Korea: US Army and Marine troops liberate Seoul.

1954 School integration begins in Washington, DC and Baltimore, Maryland public schools.

1956 During a flight test of the US Air Force Bell X-2, the world's fastest and highest-flying plane, crashes, killing the test pilot, Milburn Apt.

1959 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev concludes his US visit.

1959 Typhoon Vera hits the Japanese island of Honshu, killing nearly 5,000.

1960 Europe's first moving pavement, the 'travelator', is unveiled at Bank underground station in London.

1961 Sierre Leone becomes the 100th member of the UN.

1962 The US sells Hawk antiaircraft missiles to Israel.

1963 At 10:59 AM the census clock records the US population at 190,000,000.

1964 After a ten-month investigation, the Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Is released, concluding that there was no conspiracy in the assassination, either domestic or international, and that Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, acted alone.

1967 The Queen Mary arrives in Southampton at end of its last transatlantic voyage.

1968 The UK's entry into the European Common Market is barred by France.

1973 Soyuz 12 carries 2 cosmonauts into Earth orbit for 2 days.

1973 US Vice President Spiro Agnew says he will not resign after pleading "no contest" to a charge of tax evasion.

1979 The Department of Education becomes the 13th Cabinet in US history after the final approval from Congress.

1982 A multinational force of Italian and French soldiers enter the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Beirut due to hundreds of Palestinians being massacred by Christian militiamen.

1986 The US Senate approves federal tax code changes that are the most sweeping since World War II.

1988 Laboratory tests prove that the Shroud of Turin cannot be Christ`s burial cloth.

1990 Desert Sheild: The deposed emir of Kuwait addressed the UN General Assembly and denounced the "rape, destruction and terror" that Iraq had inflicted upon his country.

1991 President Bush decides to end the full-time B-52 bombers alert and announces the United States will unilaterally eliminate tactical nuclear weapons on land and at sea in Europe and Asia. Bush then calls on the Soviet Union to do the same.

1991 The PLO legislature votes to support US and Soviet-sponsored Middle East peace efforts.

1993 Newly elected Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, D-Texas, is indicted for using state workers, computers and supplies for her 'personal benefit' during her Senate campaign.

1993 In the wake of the Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas, the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Stephen Higgins, announces his resignation.

1994 More than 350 Republican congressional candidates sign the Contract with America, a 10-point platform they pledge to enact if voters send a GOP majority to the House. They do and they don't.

1994 US forces in Haiti take control of the parliament building and begin paying Haitians to turn in weapons in order to reduce firepower on the streets.

1995 US government unveils the redesigned $100 bill, featuring a larger, off-center portrait of Benjamin Franklin.

1996 The Taliban seizes control of Afghanistan from the previous rebel group that'd taken the country back from Moscow's control. The new rebels hang Afghani leader Najibullah and his brother.

1998 In Germany, Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder is elected chancellor, ending 16 years of conservative rule by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Christian Democratic Party.

2001

2001 The Taliban acknowledge that they can indeed communicate with bin Laden, saying they have given him a week-old message from clerics requesting that he leave the country voluntarily.

2001 In further steps following the terrorist attacks on the US, President Bush asks governors to assign National Guard troops to help protect commercial airports and says that armed sky marshals in plainclothes will soon begin riding some flights.

Also, cockpit doors will be fortified to make unauthorized access more difficult.

2001 Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi's comments that Western civilization is superior to Islam are inaccurate, UK Home Secretary David Blunkett says.

2003

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