February 27
Events
Pre-1600
- 380 - Edict of Thessalonica: Emperor Theodosius I and his co-emperors Gratian and Valentinian II declare their wish that all Roman citizens convert to Nicene Christianity.
- 425 - The University of Constantinople is founded by Emperor Theodosius II at the urging of his wife Aelia Eudocia.
- 907 - Abaoji, chieftain of the Yila tribe, is named khagan of the Khitans.
- 1560 - The Treaty of Berwick is signed by England and the Lords of the Congregation of Scotland, establishing the terms under which English armed forces were to be permitted in Scotland in order to expel occupying French troops.
- 1594 - Henry IV is crowned King of France.
1601–1900
- 1617 - Sweden and the Tsardom of Russia sign the Treaty of Stolbovo, ending the Ingrian War and shutting Russia out of the Baltic Sea.
- 1626 - Yuan Chonghuan is appointed Governor of Liaodong, after leading the Chinese into a great victory against the Manchurians under Nurhaci.
- 1776 - American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge in North Carolina breaks up a Loyalist militia.
- 1782 - American Revolutionary War: The House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America.
- 1801 - Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.
- 1809 - Action of 27 February 1809: Captain Bernard Dubourdieu captures HMS Proserpine.
- 1812 - Argentine War of Independence: Manuel Belgrano raises the Flag of Argentina in the city of Rosario for the first time.
- 1812 - Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire.
- 1844 - The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti.
- 1859 - United States representative Daniel Sickles, after learning of an affair between his wife and Attorney General Philip Barton Key II, murders him in Washington, D.C.
- 1860 - Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that plays an important role in his election to the Presidency.
- 1864 - American Civil War: The first Northern prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia.
- 1870 - The current flag of Japan is first adopted as the national flag for Japanese merchant ships.
- 1881 - First Boer War: The Battle of Majuba Hill takes place.
- 1898 - King George I of Greece survives an assassination attempt.
- 1900 - Second Boer War: In South Africa, British military leaders receive an unconditional notice of surrender from Boer General Piet Cronjé at the Battle of Paardeberg.
- 1900 - The British Labour Party is founded.
- 1900 - Fußball-Club Bayern München is founded.
1901–present
- 1902 - Second Boer War: Australian soldiers Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Handcock are executed in Pretoria after being convicted of war crimes.
- 1916 - Ocean liner SS Maloja strikes a mine near Dover and sinks with the loss of 155 lives.
- 1921 - The International Working Union of Socialist Parties is founded in Vienna.
- 1922 - A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Leser v. Garnett.
- 1932 - The Mäntsälä rebellion begins when members of the far-right Lapua Movement start shooting at the social democrats' event in Mäntsälä, Finland.
- 1933 - Reichstag fire: Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, is set on fire; Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch Communist claims responsibility.
- 1939 - United States labor law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp. that the National Labor Relations Board has no authority to force an employer to rehire workers who engage in sit-down strikes.
- 1940 - Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14.
- 1942 - World War II: During the Battle of the Java Sea, an Allied strike force is defeated by a Japanese task force in the Java Sea in the Dutch East Indies.
- 1943 - The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.
- 1943 - The Holocaust: In Berlin, the Gestapo arrest 1,800 Jewish men with German wives, leading to the Rosenstrasse protest.
- 1951 - The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.
- 1961 - The first congress of the Spanish Trade Union Organisation is inaugurated.
- 1962 - Vietnam War: Two dissident Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots bomb the Independence Palace in Saigon in a failed attempt to assassinate South Vietnam President Ngô Đình Diệm.
- 1963 - The Dominican Republic receives its first democratically elected president, Juan Bosch, since the end of the dictatorship led by Rafael Trujillo.
- 1964 - The Government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.
- 1971 - Doctors in the first Dutch abortion clinic start performing artificially-induced abortions.
- 1973 - The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee in protest of the federal government.
- 1976 - The former Spanish territory of Western Sahara, under the auspices of the Polisario Front declares independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
- 1988 - Sumgait pogrom: The Armenian community in Sumgait, Azerbaijan is targeted in a violent pogrom.
- 1991 - Gulf War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated".
- 2001 - Loganair Flight 670A crashes while attempting to make a water landing in the Firth of Forth in Scotland.
- 2002 - Ryanair Flight 296 catches fire at London Stansted Airport causing minor injuries.
- 2002 - Godhra train burning: A Muslim mob torches a train returning from Ayodhya, killing 59 Hindu pilgrims.
- 2004 - A bombing of a SuperFerry by Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines' worst terrorist attack kills more than 100 passengers.
- 2004 - Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, is sentenced to death for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack.
- 2007 - Chinese stock bubble of 2007: The Shanghai Stock Exchange falls 9%, the largest daily fall in ten years, following speculation about a crackdown on illegal share offerings and trading, and fears about accelerating inflation.
- 2008 - Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari escapes from a detention center in Singapore, hiding in Johor, Malaysia until he was recaptured over a year later.
- 2010 - An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale strikes central parts of Chile leaving over 500 victims, and thousands injured. The quake triggers a tsunami which strikes Hawaii shortly after.
- 2013 - A shooting takes place at a factory in Menznau, Switzerland, in which five people are killed and five others injured.
- 2015 - Russian politician Boris Nemtsov is assassinated in Moscow while out walking with his girlfriend.
- 2019 - Pakistan Air Force JF-17 Thunder downs Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman's Mig-21 in an aerial dogfight and captures him after conducting airstrikes in Jammu and Kashmir.
Births
Pre-1600
- 272 - Constantine the Great, Roman emperor
- 1343 - Alberto d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara
- 1427 - Ruprecht, Archbishop of Cologne
- 1500 - João de Castro, Portuguese nobleman and fourth viceroy of Portuguese India
- 1535 - Min Phalaung, Burmese monarch
- 1567 - William Alabaster, English poet
- 1572 - Francis II, Duke of Lorraine
- 1575 - John Adolf, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp
1601–1900
- 1622 - Carel Fabritius, Dutch painter
- 1630 - Roche Braziliano, Dutch pirate
- 1659 - William Sherard, English botanist
- 1667 - Ludwika Karolina Radziwiłł, Prussian-Lithuanian wife of Charles III Philip, Elector Palatine
- 1689 - Pietro Gnocchi, Italian composer, director, historian, and geographer
- 1703 - Lord Sidney Beauclerk, English politician
- 1711 - Constantine Mavrocordatos, Ottoman ruler
- 1724 - Frederick Michael, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken
- 1732 - Jean de Dieu-Raymond de Cucé de Boisgelin, French cardinal
- 1746 - Louis-Jérôme Gohier, French politician, French Minister of Justice
- 1748 - Anders Sparrman, Swedish physician and activist
- 1767 - Jacques-Charles Dupont de l'Eure, French lawyer and politician, 24th Prime Minister of France
- 1779 - Thomas Hazlehurst, English businessman, founded Hazlehurst & Sons
- 1789 - Manuel Rodríguez Erdoíza, Chilean lawyer and politician, Chilean Minister of National Defense
- 1795 - José Antonio Navarro, American merchant and politician
- 1799 - Edward Belcher, British naval officer, hydrographer, and explorer
- 1799 - Frederick Catherwood, British artist, architect and explorer
- 1807 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet and educator
- 1809 - Jean-Charles Cornay, French missionary and saint
- 1816 - William Nicholson, English-Australian politician, 3rd Premier of Victoria
- 1847 - Ellen Terry, English actress
- 1848 - Hubert Parry, English composer and historian
- 1859 - Bertha Pappenheim, Austrian-German activist and author
- 1863 - Joaquín Sorolla, Spanish painter
- 1863 - George Herbert Mead, American sociologist and philosopher
- 1864 - Eemil Nestor Setälä, Finnish linguist and politician, Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs
- 1867 - Irving Fisher, American economist and statistician
- 1867 - Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, Swedish composer and critic
- 1869 - Alice Hamilton, American physician and academic
- 1872 - Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, Romanian politician, Prime Minister of Romania
- 1875 - Vladimir Filatov, Russian-Ukrainian ophthalmologist and surgeon
- 1877 - Adela Verne, English pianist and composer
- 1877 - Joseph Grinnell, American zoologist and biologist
- 1878 - Alvan T. Fuller, American businessman and politician, 50th Governor of Massachusetts
- 1880 - Xenophon Kasdaglis, Greek-Egyptian tennis player
- 1881 - Sveinn Björnsson, Danish-Icelandic lawyer and politician, 1st President of Iceland
- 1881 - L. E. J. Brouwer, Dutch mathematician, philosopher, and academic
- 1886 - Hugo Black, American captain, lawyer, politician, and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
- 1887 - Pyotr Nesterov, Russian captain, pilot, and engineer
- 1888 - Roberto Assagioli, Italian psychiatrist and psychologist
- 1888 - Lotte Lehmann, German-American soprano and actress
- 1888 - Stephen McKenna, English novelist
- 1890 - Mabel Keaton Staupers, American nurse and advocate
- 1891 - David Sarnoff, American businessman, founded RCA
- 1892 - William Demarest, American actor
- 1895 - Miyagiyama Fukumatsu, Japanese sumo wrestler
- 1897 - Marian Anderson, American singer
- 1899 - Charles Best, American-Canadian physiologist and biochemist, co-discovered insulin