TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
27 April
◆399 BCE Socrates, noted hoplite, stone cutter, busy-body, executed by poison.
◆1521 Ferdinand Magellan, 41, explorer, slain by the Filipinos.
◆1528 Battle of Cape d'Orso: Franco-Genovese fleet crushes the Spanish.
◆1773 The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and thus granting it a monopoly on the American tea trade.
◆1799 Battle of Cassano: Russo-Austrians defeat the French.
◆1805 After marching 500 miles from Egypt, U.S. agent William Eaton leads a small force of U.S. Marines and Berber mercenaries against the Tripolitan port city of Derna. The Marines and Berbers were on a mission to depose Yusuf Karamanli, the ruling pasha of Tripoli, who had seized power from his brother, Hamet Karamanli, a pasha who was sympathetic to the United States.
◆1813 After surviving two dangerous exploratory expeditions into uncharted areas of the West, Zebulon Pike dies during a battle in the War of 1812.
◆1822 Ulysses S. Grant, general and 18th U.S. president (1869-1877), was born in Point Pleasant [Hiram], Ohio.
◆1849 Battle of Marghera: Austrians defeat Italian Nationalists in the Veneto.
◆1860 Thomas J Jackson (the future "Stonewall") was assigned to command Harpers Ferry.
◆1861 President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
◆1861 West Virginia seceded from Virginia after Virginia seceded from the Union.
◆1861 President Lincoln extended blockade of Confederacy to VA and NC ports.
◆1861 US Secretary of the Navy Welles issued order for Union ships to seize Confederate privateers upon the high seas.
◆1862 Fort Livingston, Bastian Bay, Louisiana, surrendered to the Navy Boat crew from U.S.S. Kittatinny who raised the United States flag over the fort.
◆1863 Battle of Streight's raid: Tuscumbia to Cedar Bluff, AL.
◆1863 The Army of the Potomac began marching on Chancellorsville.
◆1864 Attempting to reach Alexandria, Union gunboats under Rear Admiral Porter fought a running engagement with Confederate troops and artillery along the Red River.
◆1865 THE SULTANA EXPLOSION.
◆1940 Himmler orders the construction of Auschwitz concentration camp.
◆1942 The 1st convoys of Japanese detainees arrived at the Tanforan detention center south of San Francisco. The assembly center remained in operation for 169 days after which detainees were transferred to relocation camps. Most of the Tanforan detainees were transferred to Abraham, Utah.
◆1944 During the night (April 27-28), 3 American LST landing craft, conducting an invasion exercise (Exercise "Tiger"), are torpedoed by German E-boats in Lyme Bay. A total of 638 troops are killed. This incident is kept secret for fear of damaging Anglo-American relations.
◆1944 US troops occupy the main airstrip at Hollandia, New Guinea.
◆1945 Forces of US 5th Army liberate Genoa, which is already substantially controlled by Italian partisan forces.
◆1945 Italian partisans captured Mussolini.
◆1945 US forces capture Baguio, on Luzon. Fighting continues in the Bicol Peninsula.
◆1945 A squadron of 3 cruisers and 6 destroyers, commanded by Admiral Berkey, make a preparatory bombardment of targets in the Tarakan area in the northeast of the island of Borneo.
◆1946 1st radar installation aboard a commercial ship was installed.
◆1951 Munsan fell to communist forces as the CCF (Chinese Communist Forces) Spring Offensive continued.
◆1959 US State Dept. announced small arms stored in Canal Zone will be provided to Panamanian forces to repel Cuban invaders.
◆1960 The 1st atomic powered electric-drive submarine was launched at Tullibee.
◆1966 After a US Air Force B-57 became reported overdue, the US Coast Guard Eastern Area Commander commenced an intensive air search. The 2-day, large-scale, over water search for the missing aircraft, all of which was coordinated by the U.S. Coast Guard, unfortunately, yielded negative results.
◆1972 Apollo 16 returned to Earth.
◆1972 North Vietnamese troops shatter defenses north of Quang Tri and move to within 2.5 miles of the city.
◆1975 Saigon was encircled by North Vietnamese troops.
◆1978 Afghanistan President Sardar Mohammed Daoud is overthrown and murdered in a coup led by procommunist rebels.
◆1989 In China more than 150,000 students and workers calling for democracy marched, cheered and sang as they took over Tiananmen Square in central Beijing.
◆1991 A group of 250 Kurds became the first refugees to move into a new US-built camp in northern Iraq.
◆1997 A Texas militia group, called Republic of Texas, took 2 hostages at the Davis Mountain Resort community in a standoff with 300 police officers.
◆1998 The UN extended security sanctions against Iraq but agreed to reviews every 60 days. It was earlier reported that Iraq recently had executed 1,500 political prisoners.
◆1999 The US Pentagon announced a call for 33,102 reservists for active duty in Kosovo.
◆2001 In Puerto Rico the US Navy resumed bombing exercises on Vieques Island where 14 protesters were arrested.
◆2004 U.S. troops fought gunbattles with militiamen overnight near the city of Najaf, killing 64 gunmen and destroying an anti-aircraft system belonging to the insurgents.