May 27 in History

Malcolm IV (Medieval Gaelic: Máel Coluim mac Eanric; Scottish Gaelic: Maol Chaluim mac Eanraig), nicknamed Virgo, "the Maiden" (between 23 April and 24 May 1141 – 9 December 1165) was King of Scotland from 1153 until his death. He was the eldest son of Henry, Earl of Huntingdon and Northumbria (died 1152) and Ada de Warenne. The original Malcolm Canmore, a name now associated with his great-grandfather Malcolm III (Máel Coluim mac Donnchada), he succeeded his grandfather David I, and shared David's Anglo-Norman tastes. Called Malcolm the Maiden by later chroniclers, a name which may incorrectly suggest weakness or effeminacy to modern readers, he was noted for his religious zeal and interest in knighthood and warfare. For much of his reign, he was in poor health and died unmarried at the age of twenty-four.

John (Christmastide 1166/7 – 19 October 1216) was King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216. He lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the collapse of the Angevin Empire and contributing to the subsequent growth in power of the French Capetian dynasty during the 13th century. The baronial revolt at the end of John's reign led to the sealing of Magna Carta, a document considered a foundational milestone in English and later British constitutional history. John was the youngest son of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was nicknamed John Lackland (Norman: Jean sans Terre, lit. 'John without land') because, as a younger son, he was not expected to inherit significant lands. He became Henry's favourite child after Henry faced a failed revolt from John's older brothers, Henry the Young King, Richard, and Geoffrey. Henry II appointed John Lord of Ireland in 1177 and gave him lands in England and on the continent. During the reign of his brother Richard I, John unsuccessfully attempted a rebellion against Richard's administrators while the King was participating in the Third Crusade, but he was proclaimed king after Richard died in 1199. Philip II of France agreed to recognise John's possession of the continental Angevin lands at the peace treaty of Le Goulet in 1200. When war with France broke out again in 1202, John achieved early victories, but shortages of military resources and his treatment of Norman, Breton, and Anjou nobles resulted in the collapse of his empire in northern France in 1204. He spent much of the next decade attempting to regain these lands, raising huge revenues, reforming his armed forces and rebuilding continental alliances. His judicial reforms had a lasting effect on the English common law system, as well as providing an additional source of revenue. His dispute with Pope Innocent III over the election of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury led Innocent to ban church services in England from 1208 until 1214 and excommunicate John from 1209 until 1213. John's attempt to defeat Philip in 1214 failed because of the French victory over John's allies at the Battle of Bouvines. When he returned to England, John faced a rebellion by many of his barons, who were unhappy with his fiscal policies and his treatment of powerful English nobles. John and the barons agreed to Magna Carta as a peace treaty in 1215. However, neither side complied with its conditions. Civil war erupted shortly afterwards, with the barons aided by Philip's son Louis, and soon descended into a stalemate. Amid the civil war, John died of dysentery in eastern England in late 1216; supporters of his son Henry III went on to achieve victory over Louis and the rebel barons the following year. Contemporary chroniclers were mostly critical of John's performance as king, and his reign has since been the subject of significant debate and periodic revision by historians from the 16th century onwards. Historian Jim Bradbury has summarised the current historical opinion of John's positive qualities, observing that John is today usually considered a "hard-working administrator, an able man, an able general". Nonetheless, modern historians agree that he also had many faults as king, including what historian Ralph Turner describes as "distasteful, even dangerous personality traits", such as pettiness, spitefulness, and cruelty. These negative qualities provided extensive material for fiction writers in the Victorian era, and John remains a recurring character within Western popular culture, primarily as a villain in Robin Hood folklore.

Richard (5 January 1209 – 2 April 1272) was an English prince who was King of the Romans from 1257 until his death in 1272. He was the second son of John, King of England, and Isabella, Countess of Angoulême. Richard was nominal Count of Poitou from 1225 to 1243, and he also held the title Earl of Cornwall from 1225. He was one of the wealthiest men in Europe and joined the Barons' Crusade, where he achieved success as a negotiator for the release of prisoners and assisted with the building of the citadel in Ascalon.

The Battle of Clontibret was fought in County Monaghan in May 1595, during the Nine Years' War in Ireland. A column of 1,750 English troops led by Henry Bagenal was ambushed near Clontibret by a larger Gaelic Irish army led by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. The English column had been sent to relieve the besieged English garrison at Monaghan Castle. The English suffered very heavy losses, but a suicidal cavalry charge apparently saved it from destruction. The Irish victory shocked the English and was their first severe setback during the war.

The Manchus are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and Qing (1636–1912) dynasties of China were established and ruled by the Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in northern China.

Peter I (9 June 1672 – 8 February 1725), known by the epithet the Great, was the tsar of all Russia from 1682 to 1721, and the first emperor of Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned jointly with his brother, Ivan V, from 1682 until Ivan's death in 1696. Much of Peter's reign was consumed by lengthy wars against the Ottoman and Swedish empires. His Azov campaigns were followed by the foundation of the Russian Navy; after his victory in the Great Northern War, Russia annexed a significant portion of the eastern Baltic coastline and was officially raised from a tsardom to an empire. Peter led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernized, and based on the radical Enlightenment. In December 1699, he introduced the Julian calendar, and in 1703, he introduced the first Russian newspaper, Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, and ordered the civil script, a reform of Russian orthography largely designed by himself. On the shores of the Neva River, he founded Saint Petersburg, a city famously dubbed by Francesco Algarotti as the "window to the West". In 1712, Peter relocated the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg, a status it retained until 1918. Peter had a great interest in plants, animals and minerals, in malformed creatures or exceptions to the law of nature for his cabinet of curiosities. He encouraged research of deformities, all along trying to debunk the superstitious fear of monsters. He promoted industrialization in the Russian Empire and higher education. The Russian Academy of Sciences and Saint Petersburg State University were founded in 1724, and invited Christian Wolff and Willem 's Gravesande. Peter is primarily credited with the modernization of the country, quickly transforming it into a major European power. His administrative reforms, creating a Governing Senate in 1711, the Collegium in 1717 and the Table of Ranks in 1722, had a lasting impact on Russia, and many institutions of the Russian government trace their origins to his reign.

The Pitt–Tierney Duel took place on 27 May 1798 when the prime minister of Great Britain William Pitt the Younger met his political opponent George Tierney in a duel with pistols on Putney Heath outside London.

The Battle of Oulart Hill took place on 27 May 1798 when a rebel gathering of between approximately 1,000 annihilated a detachment of 110 militia sent from Wexford town to stamp out the spreading rebellion in County Wexford.

The War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802) was the second war between revolutionary France and a coalition of European monarchies, led by Britain, Austria and Russia, and including the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples and various German monarchies. Prussia did not join the coalition, while Spain supported France.

The War of 1812 was a conflict initiated by the United States against the United Kingdom and its allies fought mainly in North America and at sea during the wider Napoleonic Wars. The United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on 17 February 1815.

Ibrahim Pasha (Arabic: إبراهيم باشا Ibrāhīm Bāshā; 1789 – 10 November 1848) was an Egyptian general and politician; he was the commander of both the Egyptian and Ottoman armies and the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman Wāli and unrecognized Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He was the second ruler of Egypt from the Muhammad Ali dynasty and ruled from 20 July 1848 to 10 November 1848. Ibrahim served as a general in the Egyptian army that his father established during his reign, taking his first command of Egyptian forces when he was merely a teenager. In the final year of his life, he was appointed Regent for his still-living father and became the effective ruler of Egypt and Sudan, owing to the latter's ill health. His rule also extended over the other dominions that his father had brought under Egyptian rule, namely Syria, Hejaz, Morea, Thasos, and Crete. Ibrahim pre-deceased his father, dying 10 November 1848, only four months after rising to power. He was succeeded as Regent by his nephew (son of Muhammad Ali's second oldest son), Abbas, who upon Muhammad Ali's death the following year inherited the Egyptian throne. Ibrahim remains one of the most celebrated members of the Muhammad Ali dynasty, particularly for his impressive military victories, including several crushing defeats of the Ottoman Empire, which placed him among the most outstanding commanders in military history. Among Egyptian historians, Ibrahim, his father Muhammad Ali, and his son Isma'il the Magnificent are held in far higher esteem than other rulers from the dynasty, who were largely viewed as indolent and corrupt; this is largely the result of efforts by his grandson Fuad I of Egypt to ensure the positive portrayal of his paternal ancestors in the Royal Archives that he created, which were the primary source for Egyptian history from the 1920s until the 1970s. Today, a statue of Ibrahim occupies a prominent position in Egypt's capital, Cairo.

Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi (Italian: [dʒuˈzɛppe ɡariˈbaldi] ; 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. He contributed to the Unification of Italy (Risorgimento) and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. He is considered to be one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland", along with Camillo Benso di Cavour, King Victor Emmanuel II and Giuseppe Mazzini. Garibaldi is also known as the "Hero of the Two Worlds" because of his military enterprises in South America and Europe. Garibaldi was a follower of the Italian nationalist Mazzini and embraced the republican nationalism of the Young Italy movement. He became a supporter of Italian unification under a democratic republican government. However, breaking with Mazzini, he pragmatically allied himself with the monarchist Cavour and the Kingdom of Sardinia in the struggle for independence, subordinating his republican ideals to his nationalist ones until Italy was unified. After participating in an uprising in Piedmont, he was sentenced to death, but escaped and sailed to South America, where he spent 14 years in exile, during which he took part in several wars and learned the art of guerrilla warfare. In 1835 he joined the rebels known as the Ragamuffins (farrapos), in the Ragamuffin War in Brazil, and took up their cause of establishing the Riograndense Republic and later the Catarinense Republic. Garibaldi also became involved in the Uruguayan Civil War, raising an Italian force known as Redshirts, and is still celebrated as an important contributor to Uruguay's reconstitution. In 1848, Garibaldi returned to Italy. He commanded and fought in military campaigns that eventually led to the Italian unification. The provisional government of Milan made him a general and the Minister of War promoted him to General of the Roman Republic in 1849. When the war of independence broke out in April 1859, Garibaldi led his Hunters of the Alps in the capture of major cities in Lombardy, including Varese and Como, until he reached the frontier of South Tyrol; the war ended with the acquisition of Lombardy. The following year, 1860, he led the Expedition of the Thousand on behalf of, and with the consent of, Victor Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia. The expedition was a success and concluded with the annexation of Sicily, Southern Italy, Marche and Umbria to the Kingdom of Sardinia before the creation of a unified Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861. His last military campaign took place during the Franco-Prussian War as commander of the Army of the Vosges. Garibaldi became an international figurehead for national independence and republican ideals, and is considered by twentieth-century historiography and popular culture as Italy's greatest national hero. He was showered with admiration and praise by many contemporary intellectuals and political figures, including Abraham Lincoln, William Brown, Francesco de Sanctis, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Malwida von Meysenbug, George Sand, Charles Dickens, and Friedrich Engels. Garibaldi also inspired later figures like Jawaharlal Nehru and Che Guevara. Historian A. J. P. Taylor called him "the only wholly admirable figure in modern history". The volunteers who followed Garibaldi during his campaigns were known as the Garibaldini or Redshirts, after the color of the shirts that they wore in lieu of a uniform.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.

Dorsland Trek is the collective name of a series of explorations undertaken by Boer settlers from South Africa from 1874 to 1881, in search of political independence and better living conditions. The participants, Trekboers from the Orange Free State and Transvaal, are called Dorslandtrekkers.

Alexander III (Russian: Александр III Александрович Романов, romanized: Aleksandr III Aleksandrovich Romanov; 10 March 1845 – 1 November 1894) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death in 1894. He was highly reactionary in domestic affairs and reversed some of the liberal reforms of his father, Alexander II, a policy of "counter-reforms" (Russian: контрреформы). During his reign, Russia fought no major wars, and he came to be known as The Peacemaker (Russian: Царь-Миротворец, romanized: Tsar’-Mirotvorets Russian pronunciation: [t͡sarʲ mʲɪrɐˈtvorʲɪt͡s]), a laudatory title enduring into 21st century historiography. His major foreign policy achievement was the Franco-Russian Alliance, a major shift in international relations that eventually embroiled Russia in World War I. His political legacy represented a direct challenge to the European cultural order set forth by German statesman Otto von Bismarck, intermingling Russian influences with the shifting balances of power.

The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the Liaodong Peninsula and near Mukden in Southern Manchuria, with naval battles taking place in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. At the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895 had ceded the Liaodong Peninsula and Port Arthur to Japan before the Triple Intervention, in which Russia, Germany, and France forced Japan to relinquish its claim. Japan feared that Russia would impede its plans to establish a sphere of influence in mainland Asia, especially as Russia built the Trans-Siberian Railroad, began making inroads in Korea, and acquired a lease of the Liaodong Peninsula and Port Arthur from China in 1898. Japan signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, and began offering to recognize Russia's dominance in Manchuria in exchange for recognition of Korea as part of Japan's sphere of influence. However, this was rejected by Russia. After negotiations broke down, Japan opened hostilities in a surprise attack on the Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur on 9 February [O.S. 27 January] 1904. Both sides declared war, and Japanese troops landed in Korea, crossed the Yalu River into Manchuria in May, and landed more forces on the Liaodong Peninsula. In August, the Japanese laid siege to Port Arthur, which eventually fell in January 1905. In March 1905, Japanese troops took Mukden, the Manchurian capital, after heavy fighting. The Russian Baltic Fleet, which had sailed over seven months and 18,000 nautical miles (33,000 km) from the Baltic Sea to reinforce its Pacific Fleet, arrived in the region in May and was intercepted and destroyed by the Japanese Combined Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. The war was concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth (5 September [O.S. 23 August] 1905), mediated by US president Theodore Roosevelt. The treaty recognized Japanese interests in Korea, and awarded to Japan Russia's lease on the Liaodong Peninsula, control of the Russian-built South Manchuria Railway, and the southern half of the island of Sakhalin (Karafuto). The complete military victory of an Asian and non-Western nation over a European and Western power surprised international observers, and transformed the global balance of power, with the Empire of Japan emerging as a great power and the Russian Empire declining in prestige among the European powers. Russia's incurrence of substantial casualties and losses for a cause which resulted in a humiliating defeat contributed to internal unrest culminating in the 1905 Russian Revolution, during which the Russian autocracy was forced to make concessions. More widely, however, Japan's win effectively damaged the credibility of European dominance across Asia.

HMS Princess Irene was a 5,394 GRT ocean liner which was built in 1914 by William Denny and Brothers Ltd, Dumbarton, Scotland for the Canadian Pacific Railway. She was requisitioned by the Royal Navy on completion and converted to an auxiliary minelayer. On 27 May 1915, she exploded and sank off Sheerness, Kent, while being loaded with mines prior to a deployment mission, with the loss of 352 lives.

Pope Benedict XV (Latin: Benedictus PP. XV; Italian: Benedetto XV; born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, Italian: [ˈdʒaːkomo ˈpaːolo dʒoˈvanni batˈtista della ˈkjɛːza]; 21 November 1854 – 22 January 1922) was head of the Catholic Church from 1914 until his death in January 1922. His pontificate was largely focused on World War I and its political, social, and humanitarian consequences in Europe. In 1914, the College of Cardinals chose della Chiesa at the relatively young age of 59 at the outbreak of World War I, which he labeled "the suicide of civilized Europe". The war and its consequences were the main focus of Benedict XV. He immediately declared the neutrality of the Holy See and attempted from that perspective to mediate peace in 1916 and 1917. Both sides rejected his initiatives. German Protestants rejected any "Papal Peace" as insulting. The French politician Georges Clemenceau regarded the Vatican initiative as being anti-French. Having failed with diplomatic initiatives, Benedict XV focused on humanitarian efforts to lessen the impacts of the war, such as attending prisoners of war, the exchange of wounded soldiers and food deliveries to needy populations in Europe. After the war, he repaired the difficult relations with France, which re-established relations with the Vatican in 1921. During his pontificate, relations with Italy improved as well, as Benedict XV now permitted Catholic politicians led by Don Luigi Sturzo to participate in national Italian politics. In 1917, Benedict XV promulgated the Code of Canon Law, which was released on 27 May, the creation of which he had prepared with Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) and Pietro Gasparri during the pontificate of Pope Pius X. The new Code of Canon Law is considered to have stimulated religious life and activities throughout the Church. He named Gasparri to be his Cardinal Secretary of State and personally consecrated Nuncio Pacelli on 13 May 1917 as Archbishop. World War I caused great damage to Catholic missions throughout the world. Benedict XV revitalized these activities, asking in Maximum illud for Catholics throughout the world to participate. For that, he has been referred to as the "Pope of Missions". His last concern was the emerging persecution of the Catholic Church in Soviet Russia and the famine there after the revolution. Benedict XV was devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and authorized the Feast of Mary, Mediatrix of all Graces. After seven years in office, Pope Benedict XV died on 22 January 1922 after battling pneumonia since the start of that month. He was buried in the grottoes of Saint Peter's Basilica.

The NC-4 is a Curtiss NC flying boat that was the first aircraft to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, albeit not non-stop. The NC designation was derived from the collaborative efforts of the Navy (N) and Curtiss (C). The NC series flying boats were designed to meet wartime needs, and after the end of World War I they were sent overseas to validate the design concept.

The Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand, and luxury cars under its Lincoln brand. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the single-letter ticker symbol F and is controlled by the Ford family. They have minority ownership but a plurality of the voting power.

The New Deal refers to a series of economic, social, and political reforms in response to the Great Depression in the United States under the first and second administrations of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Following a demand-side economic theory, Roosevelt sought to utilize the authority of the federal government to increase spending and introduce programs to spur growth and combat issues specific to the depression, such as unemployment, labor relations, financial reform, and social welfare.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party". In 1803, the court asserted the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law.

California is a state in the Western United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. With a population of over 39 million across an area of 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the third largest by land area.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving US president and the only one to have served more than two terms. His first two terms centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth focused on US involvement in World War II. A member of the Democratic Party, Roosevelt served in the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913 and as the 44th governor of New York from 1929 to 1932. Born into the prominent Delano and Roosevelt families, Roosevelt graduated from Harvard University. He was elected to the New York State Senate in 1910, before becoming the assistant secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. Roosevelt was the running mate of James M. Cox on the Democratic ticket in the 1920 presidential election, which Cox lost to Republican nominee Warren G. Harding. In 1921, an illness permanently paralyzed his legs. However, partly through the encouragement of his wife Eleanor, he was elected governor of New York in 1928. As governor, he promoted programs to combat the Great Depression. Roosevelt defeated President Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory in the 1932 presidential election. During his first 100 days as president, Roosevelt initiated the program to implement the New Deal, built the New Deal coalition, and realigned American politics into the Fifth Party System. He created programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers while seeking economic recovery with the National Recovery Administration and other programs. He was re-elected in 1936, in one of the largest landslide victories in American history. Major surviving programs and legislation implemented under Roosevelt include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Act, and Social Security. In 1940, he was reelected, as there were no presidential term limits until 1951. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt obtained a declaration of war on Japan, and subsequently on Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Roosevelt supervised the mobilization of the American economy to support the war effort and implemented a Europe first strategy. He also initiated the development of the first atomic bomb and worked with the other Allied leaders to lay the groundwork for the United Nations. Roosevelt won reelection in 1944, but died in 1945. Since then, some of his actions have been criticized, such as his ordering of the internment of German, Italian, and Japanese Americans. Nonetheless, historical rankings consistently place him among the three greatest American presidents.

Bismarck was the first of two Bismarck-class battleships built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched in February 1939. Work was completed in August 1940, when she was commissioned into the German fleet. Bismarck and her sister ship Tirpitz were the largest battleships ever built by Germany, and two of the largest built by any European power.

Reinhard Heydrich, the commander of the German Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the acting Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and a principal architect of the Holocaust, was attacked during the Second World War in a coordinated operation by the Czechoslovak resistance. The assassination attempt, code-named Operation Anthropoid, was carried out by resistance operatives Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš on 27 May 1942. Heydrich was wounded in the attack and he died 8 days later of his injuries.

Linnanmäki is an amusement park in Helsinki, Finland. It was opened on 27 May 1950 and is owned by the non-profit Children's Day Foundation, which operates the park to raise funds for Finnish child welfare work. In 2023, the foundation donated €4.5 million, and so far has donated a total of over €130 million to this cause.

The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engined, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber that was developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy. It entered service with the Navy in 1961, then was adopted by the United States Marine Corps and the United States Air Force, and within a few years became a major part of their air arms. In total, 5,195 Phantoms were built from 1958 to 1981, making it the most-produced American supersonic military aircraft in history and a signature combat aircraft of the Cold War.

Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a smaller part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east; Iraq, Syria, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south; and the Aegean Sea, Greece, and Bulgaria to the west. Turkey is home to over 86 million people; most are ethnic Turks, while Kurds are the largest ethnic minority. Officially a secular state, Turkey has a Muslim-majority population. Ankara is Turkey's capital and second-largest city. Istanbul is its largest city and economic center. Other major cities include İzmir, Bursa, and Antalya.

A coal-seam fire has been burning in the labyrinth of abandoned coal mines underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since at least May 27, 1962. Its original cause and start date are still a matter of debate. It is burning at depths of up to 300 feet (90 m) over an 8-mile (13 km) stretch of 3,700 acres (15 km2). At its current rate, it could continue to burn for over 250 years. Due to the fire, Centralia was mostly abandoned in the 1980s. There were 1,500 residents at the time the fire is believed to have started, but as of 2017 Centralia has a population of 5 and most of the buildings have been demolished.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

The second question of the 1967 Australian referendum of 27 May 1967, called by the Holt government, related to Indigenous Australians. Voters were asked whether to give the Commonwealth Parliament the power to make special laws for Indigenous Australians, and whether Indigenous Australians should be included in official population counts for constitutional purposes. The term "the Aboriginal Race" was used in the question.

USS John F. Kennedy, the only ship of her class, was an aircraft carrier, formerly of the United States Navy. Considered a supercarrier, she was a variant of the Kitty Hawk class, and the last conventionally-powered carrier built for the Navy, as all carriers since have had nuclear propulsion. Commissioned in 1968, the ship was named after John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States. John F. Kennedy was originally designated a CVA, for fixed-wing attack carrier, however the designation was changed to CV, for fleet carrier.

The Dahlerau train disaster was a railway accident that occurred on May 27, 1971, in Dahlerau, a small town in Radevormwald, West Germany, in which a freight train and a passenger train collided head-on. Forty-six people perished in the accident; forty-one were senior year pupils of the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule in Radevormwald. It was the deadliest accident in West Germany since its foundation in 1949, surpassed after German reunification by the Eschede train disaster in 1998.

Bengali Hindus are adherents of Hinduism who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. They make up the majority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Assam's Barak Valley region and make up the largest minority in Bangladesh. Comprising about one-third of the global Bengali population, they are the largest ethnic group among Hindus. Bengali Hindus speak Bengali, which belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and adhere to the Shaktism school of thought of Hinduism or Vaishnavism of their native religion Hinduism with some regional deities. There are significant numbers of Bengali-speaking Hindus in different Indian states.

On 27 May 1975, a coach carrying elderly passengers crashed at the bottom of a steep hill at Dibble's Bridge over the River Dibb, near Hebden in North Yorkshire, England. Thirty-three people on board were killed, including the driver, and thirteen others injured. It was the worst-ever road accident in the United Kingdom by number of fatalities.

Aeroflot Flight 331 was an international passenger flight operated by an Ilyushin Il-62M that crashed about 1 km (0.62 mi) from José Martí International Airport, in Havana, Cuba, on 27 May 1977. The accident occurred after the aircraft hit power lines on its final approach to the airport during poor weather. The aircraft was attempting an emergency landing due to a fire in one of its engines. Only two of the 69 occupants on board survived. The cause of the crash was ruled to be pilot error.

The Gwangju Uprising, also known in South Korea as the May 18 Democratization Movement, was a series of student-led demonstrations that took place in Gwangju, South Korea, in May 1980, against the coup d'état of May Seventeenth by Chun Doo-hwan that strengthened his power. Chun had previously taken power and become military dictator through the coup d'état of December Twelfth at the end of 1979. He implemented martial law, arrested opposition leaders, closed all universities, banned political activities, and suppressed the press. The uprising was violently suppressed by the South Korean military who retook Gwangju. Between 600 and 2,300 people were killed.

The Danube–Black Sea Canal is a navigable canal in Romania, which runs from Cernavodă on the Danube river, via two branches, to Constanța and Năvodari on the Black Sea. Administered from Agigea, it is an important part of the waterway link between the North Sea and the Black Sea via the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal. The main branch of the canal, with a length of 64.4 km (40.0 mi), which connects the Port of Cernavodă with the Port of Constanța, was built in 1976–1984, while the northern branch, known as the Poarta Albă–Midia Năvodari Canal, with a length of 31.2 km (19.4 mi), connecting Poarta Albă and the Port of Midia, was built between 1983 and 1987.

The Somaliland War of Independence also known as the National Liberation Struggle in Somaliland, the Northern Rebellion in Somalia, and sometimes called the Great Isaaq Uprising or the Isaaq Rebellion was an Isaaq rebellion waged by the Somali National Movement (SNM) against the ruling military junta in Somalia led by General Siad Barre lasting from its founding on 6 April 1981 and ended on 18 May 1991 when the SNM declared what was then northern Somalia independent as the Republic of Somaliland. The conflict served as the main theater of the larger Somali Rebellion that started in 1978. The conflict was in response to the harsh policies enacted by the Barre regime against the main clan family in Somaliland, the Isaaq, including a declaration of economic warfare on the clan-family. These harsh policies were put into effect shortly after the conclusion of the disastrous Ogaden War in 1978.

The First Chechen War, also referred to as the First Russo-Chechen War, was a conflict between the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and the Russian Federation from 1994 to 1996. The conflict ended in a peace treaty that saw Russian forces withdraw from the territory only for them to invade again three years later, sparking the Second Chechen War of 1999–2009.

A deadly tornado outbreak occurred in Central Texas during the afternoon and evening of May 27, 1997, in conjunction with a southwestward-moving cluster of supercell thunderstorms. These storms produced 20 tornadoes, mainly along the Interstate 35 corridor, from northeast of Waco to north of San Antonio. The strongest tornado was an F5 tornado that completely obliterated a residential subdivision along the northwestern outskirts of Jarrell, killing 27 people and injuring 12 others. Overall, 30 people were killed and 33 others were hospitalized due to the severe weather outbreak.

On April 19, 1995, American anti-government extremist Timothy McVeigh, assisted by Terry Nichols, detonated a makeshift bomb stored in a rental truck parked in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in an act of domestic terrorism. The explosion killed 167 people, injured 684, and destroyed more than a third of the building. The attack also destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings, destroyed 86 vehicles and caused an estimated $652 million in damage. During rescue operations after the bombing, a rescue worker was killed after being struck on the head by falling debris, bringing the total death toll to 168.

Space Shuttle Discovery is a retired American Space Shuttle orbiter. The spaceplane was one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, aggregating more spaceflights than any other spacecraft as of December 2024. The Space Shuttle launch vehicle had three main components: the Space Shuttle orbiter, a single-use central fuel tank, and two reusable solid rocket boosters. Nearly 25,000 heat-resistant tiles cover the orbiter to protect it from high temperatures on re-entry.

Abu Sayyaf (ASG), officially as the Islamic State – East Asia Province, is a Jihadist militant group, pirate group and former province of the Islamic State that follows the Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. It is based in and around Jolo and Basilan islands in the southwestern part of the Philippines, where Moro groups had been engaged in an insurgency seeking to create a Moro nation state. The group was responsible for the Philippines' deadliest terrorist attack, the bombing of the MV Superferry 14 which killed 116 people in 2004. The name of the group is derived from Arabic abu, and sayyaf. As of April 2023, the group was estimated to have about 20 members, down from 1,250 in 2000.

The 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake occurred at 05:53 local time on 27 May with a moment magnitude of 6.4 and a maximum MSK intensity of VIII (Damaging) in the Yogyakarta region of Java, Indonesia.

Kerala Blasters Football Club, commonly referred to simply as Blasters, is an Indian professional football club based in Kochi, Kerala, that competes in the Indian Super League (ISL), the top tier of football in India. The club was established in May 2014 during the inaugural season of the ISL.

Andrew James Scheer is a Canadian politician who has been the member of Parliament (MP) for Regina—Qu'Appelle since 2004. Scheer was the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada from 2017 to 2020. He served as the leader of the Official Opposition from 2017 to 2020 and briefly in 2025. He was the 35th speaker of the House of Commons from 2011 to 2015.

In the afternoon of May 27, 2018, after over 8 inches (20 cm) of rain in a span of two hours, the historic Main Street in Ellicott City, Maryland experienced catastrophic flooding, just days before the new flood emergency alert system was supposed to become operational. Flooding occurred throughout the Patapsco Valley, in the adjacent communities of Catonsville, Arbutus, and Elkridge, as well as the Jones Falls Valley in Baltimore.