What is today history February 27

Today in History : February 27

1531 : German Protestants form the League of Schmalkalden to resist the power of the emperor.

1700 : The Pacific Island of New Britain is discovered.

1814 : Napoleon‘s Marshal Nicholas Oudinot is pushed back at Barsur-Aube by the Emperor’s allied enemies shortly before his abdication.

1827 : The first Mardi-Gras celebration is held in New Orleans.

1864 : The first Union prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison in Andersonville, Georgia. Of nearly 45,000 prisoners of war who arrive at the camp, approximately 13,000 will perish from starvation, scurvy, diarrhea, and dysentery. [From MHQ—The Quarterly Journal of Military History]

1865 : Confederate raider William Quantrill and his bushwackers attack Hickman, Kentucky, shooting women and children.

1905 : The Japanese push Russians back in Manchuria and cross the Sha River.

1908 : The forty-sixth star is added to the U.S. flag, signifying Oklahoma’s admission to statehood.

1920 : The United States rejects a Soviet peace offer as propaganda.

1925 : Glacier Bay National Monument is dedicated in Alaska.

1933 : The burning down of the Reichstag building in Berlin gives the Nazis the opportunity to suspend personal liberty with increased power.

1939 : The Supreme Court outlaws sit-down strikes.

1942 : British Commandos raid a German radar station at Bruneval on the French coast.

1953 : F-84 Thunderjets raid North Korean base on Yalu River.

1962 : South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem is unharmed as two planes bomb the presidential palace in Saigon.

1963 : The Soviet Union says that 10,000 troops will remain in Cuba.

1969 : Thousands of students protest President Richard Nixon‘s arrival in Rome.

1973 : U.S. Supreme Court rules that a Virginia pool club can’t bar residents because of color.

1988 : Debi Thomas becomes the first African American to win a medal at the Winter Olympics.

1991 : Coalition forces liberate Kuwait after seven months of occupation by the Iraqi army.

Born on February 27

1807 : Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet.

1886 : Hugo Black, U.S. Supreme Court justice.

1888 : Lotte Lehmann, German opera singer.

1891 : David Sarnoff, RCA board chairman and a pioneer of U.S. television

1897 : Marian Anderson, singer.

1902 : John Steinbeck, American novelist (The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men).

1904 : James T. Farrell, author (Young Lonigan).

1910 : Peter De Vries, writer, poetry editor (Poetry Magazine, The New Yorker).

1912 : Lawrence Durrell, novelist (The Alexandria Quartet).

1917 : John Connally, Texas Governor, wounded in the assassination of President John Kennedy.

1930 : Joanne Woodward, actress (Rachel, Rachel, The Three Faces of Eve).

1932 : Elizabeth Taylor, actress (Cleopatra, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?).

1934 : Ralph Nader, consumer advocate.