January 27
Events
Pre-1600
- 98 - Trajan succeeds his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor.
- 417 - Pope Innocent I declares Pelagius and his follower Caelestius excommunicated unless they return to orthodoxy.
- 532 - Nika riots in Constantinople fail.
- 945 - The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown and forced to become monks by Constantine VII, who becomes sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
- 1186 - Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, marries Constance of Sicily.
- 1302 - Dante Alighieri is condemned in absentia and exiled from Florence.
- 1343 - Pope Clement VI issues the papal bull Unigenitus, laying out the scriptural justification for indulgences, identifying only the Pope and episcopate as capable of accessing the treasury of merit, and establishing a jubilee year every half century.
1601–1900
- 1606 - Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, ending with their execution on January 31.
- 1695 - Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan and Caliph of Islam in Istanbul on the death of Ahmed II. Mustafa rules until his abdication in 1703.
- 1726 - J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Alles nur nach Gottes Willen, BWV 72, concluding his third Christmas season in Leipzig on the Third Sunday after Epiphany.
- 1759 - Spanish forces clash with indigenous Huilliches of southern Chile in the battle of Río Bueno.
- 1776 - American Revolutionary War: Henry Knox's "noble train of artillery" arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- 1785 - The University of Georgia is founded, the first state-chartered public university in the United States.
- 1820 - A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovers the Antarctic continent, approaching the Antarctic coast.
- 1825 - The U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory, clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears".
- 1868 - Boshin War: The Battle of Toba–Fushimi begins, between forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and pro-Imperial factions; it will end in defeat for the shogunate, and is a pivotal point in the Meiji Restoration.
- 1869 - Boshin War: Tokugawa rebels establish the Ezo Republic in Hokkaidō.
- 1874 - Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov premieres in Mariinsky Theatre in St.Petersburg.
- 1880 - Thomas Edison receives a patent for his incandescent lamp.
1901–present
- 1916 - World War I: The British government passes the Military Service Act that introduces conscription in the United Kingdom.
- 1918 - Beginning of the Finnish Civil War.
- 1924 - Six days after his death, Vladimir Lenin's body is carried into a specially erected mausoleum.
- 1927 - Ibn Saud takes the title of King of Nejd.
- 1928 - Bundaberg tragedy: a diphtheria vaccine is contaminated with Staph. aureus bacterium, resulting in the deaths of twelve children in the Australian town of Bundaberg.
- 1939 - First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.
- 1943 - World War II: The Eighth Air Force sorties ninety-one B-17s and B-24s to attack the U-boat construction yards at Wilhelmshaven, Germany. This was the first American bombing attack on Germany.
- 1944 - World War II: The 872-day Siege of Leningrad is lifted.
- 1945 - World War II: The Soviet 322nd Rifle Division liberates the remaining inmates of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
- 1951 - Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with Operation Ranger.
- 1961 - The Soviet submarine S-80 sinks when its snorkel malfunctions, flooding the boat.
- 1965 - South Vietnamese Prime Minister Trần Văn Hương is removed by the military junta of Nguyễn Khánh.
- 1967 - Apollo program: Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a test of their Apollo 1 spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
- 1967 - Cold War: The Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom sign the Outer Space Treaty in Washington, D.C., banning deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and limiting the usage of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes.
- 1973 - The Paris Peace Accords officially ends the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde is killed in action becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.
- 1980 - Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, six American diplomats secretly escape hostilities in Iran in the culmination of the Canadian Caper.
- 1983 - The pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel, the world's longest sub-aqueous tunnel between the Japanese islands of Honshū and Hokkaidō, breaks through.
- 1996 - In a military coup, Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane.
- 1996 - Germany first observes the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
- 2002 - An explosion at a military storage facility in Lagos, Nigeria, kills at least 1,100 people and displaces over 20,000 others.
- 2003 - The first selections for the National Recording Registry are announced by the Library of Congress.
- 2010 - The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis ends when Porfirio Lobo Sosa becomes the new President of Honduras.
- 2010 - Apple announces the iPad.
- 2011 - Arab Spring: The Yemeni Revolution begins as over 16,000 protestors demonstrate in Sanaa.
- 2011 - Within Ursa Minor, H1504+65, a white dwarf with the hottest known surface temperature in the universe at 200,000 K, was documented.
- 2013 - Two hundred and forty-two people die in a nightclub fire in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul.
- 2014 - Rojava conflict: The Kobanî Canton declares its autonomy from the Syrian Arab Republic.
- 2017 - A naming ceremony for the chemical element tennessine takes place in the United States.
- 2023 - Protests and public outrage spark across the U.S. after the release of multiple videos by the Memphis Police Department showing officers punching, kicking, and pepper spraying Tyre Nichols as a result of running away from a traffic stop, which resulted him dying in the hospital three days later after the incident.
- 2023 - A shooting at a synagogue in Neve Yaakov, East Jerusalem, kills seven people and injures three others.
- 2023 - An attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Pasdaran, Tehran, kills one person and injures three others.
Births
Pre-1600
- 1365 - Edward of Angoulême, English noble
- 1443 - Albert III, Duke of Saxony
- 1546 - Joachim III Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg
- 1571 - Abbas I of Persia
- 1585 - Hendrick Avercamp, Dutch painter
1601–1900
- 1603 - Sir Harbottle Grimston, 2nd Baronet, English lawyer and politician, Speaker of the House of Commons
- 1603 - Humphrey Mackworth, English politician, lawyer and judge
- 1621 - Thomas Willis, English physician and anatomist
- 1662 - Richard Bentley, English scholar and theologian
- 1663 - George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington, Royal Navy admiral
- 1687 - Johann Balthasar Neumann, German engineer and architect, designed Würzburg Residence and Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers
- 1701 - Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, German historian and theologian
- 1708 - Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia
- 1741 - Hester Thrale, Welsh author
- 1756 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian pianist and composer
- 1775 - Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, German-Swiss philosopher and academic
- 1782 - Titumir, Bengali revolutionary
- 1790 - Juan Álvarez, Mexican general and president
- 1795 - Eli Whitney Blake, American engineer, invented the Mortise lock
- 1803 - Eunice Hale Waite Cobb, American writer, public speaker, and activist
- 1805 - Maria Anna of Bavaria
- 1805 - Samuel Palmer, English painter and etcher
- 1806 - Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, Spanish composer and educator
- 1808 - David Strauss, German theologian and author
- 1814 - Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, French architect, designed the Lausanne Cathedral
- 1821 - John Chivington, American colonel and pastor
- 1823 - Édouard Lalo, French violinist and composer
- 1824 - Urbain Johnson, Canadian farmer and political figure
- 1826 - Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russian journalist and author
- 1826 - Richard Taylor, American general, historian, and politician
- 1832 - Lewis Carroll, English novelist, poet, and mathematician
- 1832 - Carl Friedrich Schmidt, Estonian-Russian geologist and botanist
- 1836 - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Austrian journalist and author
- 1842 - Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ukrainian-Russian painter
- 1848 - Tōgō Heihachirō, Japanese admiral
- 1850 - John Collier, English painter and author
- 1850 - Samuel Gompers, English-American labor leader
- 1850 - Edward Smith, English captain
- 1858 - Neel Doff, Dutch-Belgian author
- 1859 - Wilhelm II, German Emperor during World War I
- 1869 - Will Marion Cook, American violinist and composer
- 1878 - Dorothy Scarborough, American author
- 1885 - Jerome Kern, American composer and songwriter
- 1885 - Seison Maeda, Japanese painter
- 1886 - Radhabinod Pal, Indian academic and jurist
- 1889 - Balthasar van der Pol, Dutch physicist and academic
- 1893 - Soong Ching-ling, Chinese politician, Honorary President of the People's Republic of China
- 1895 - Joseph Rosenstock, Polish-American conductor and manager
- 1895 - Harry Ruby, American composer and screenwriter
- 1900 - Hyman G. Rickover, American admiral, leader in the development of nuclear propulsion in the US Navy