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On this day in History Archives
 
At PaulsQuiz.com we aim to provide you with as much information as we possibly can. That's why we have built our On This Day in History section, to do just that. Our database is forever growing, we're adding more and more events from history to help you write your quiz questions.

Simply enter a date using the drop-down boxes below and click the 'Go' button to display events from the past that ocurred on that day.
 

 
27 October, 2005
Riots begin in Paris after the deaths of two Muslim teenagers
27 October, 2002
Trades unionist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is elected as President of Brazil. The ITV Network aired a constant regional service for the last time in England and Wales, but London Weekend Television (LWT) lost its identity completely. All companies (except UTV, Channel, Scottish TV & Grampian TV) formed the national ITV1 with regional references only before regional programmes.
27 October, 1998
Gerhard Schröder becomes Chancellor of Germany for the first time.
27 October, 1997
Stock markets around the world crash because of fears of a global economic meltdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummets 554.26 points to 7,161.15. For the first time, the New York Stock Exchange activated their "circuit breakers" twice during the day eventually making the controversial move of closing the Exchange early (see October 27, 1997 mini-crash).
27 October, 1995
Latvia applies for membership in the European Union. Former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi is condemned in absentia for corruption.
27 October, 1992
US Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is brutally murdered by shipmates for being gay, precipitating first military, then national debate about gays in the military that resulted in the United States "Dont ask, dont tell" military policy.
27 October, 1991
Turkmenistan achieved independence from the Soviet Union. First free legislative elections in Poland since 1936.
27 October, 1990
Supreme Soviet of Kirghiz SSR chooses Askar Akayev as republics first president.
27 October, 1986
The United Kingdom government suddenly deregulates financial markets, leading to a total restructuring of the way in which they operate in the country, in an event now referred to as the Big Bang
27 October, 1981
The Soviet submarine U 137 runs aground on the east coast of Sweden.
27 October, 1973
The Canyon City meteorite, a 1.4 kg chondrite type meteorite strikes in Fremont County, Colorado.
27 October, 1971
Democratic Republic of the Congo is renamed Zaire.
27 October, 1970
Louis Néel receives the Nobel Prize.
27 October, 1964
Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launched his political career and came to be known as "A Time for Choosing".
27 October, 1962
Major Rudolph Anderson of the US Air Force became the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane was shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile. The plane of Enrico Mattei, Italian industrys most relevant figure, crashes in mysterious circumstances.
27 October, 1961
NASA launched the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.
27 October, 1958
Iskander Mirza, the first President of Pakistan, is deposed in a bloodless coup détat by General Ayub Khan, who was appointed the enforcer of martial law by Mirza 20 days earlier.
27 October, 1954
Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.
27 October, 1953
British nuclear test Totem 2 is detonated at Emu Field, South Australia.
27 October, 1949
An airliner flying from Paris to New York crashes near the Azores. Among the victims are violinist Ginette Neveu and boxer Marcel Cerdan.
27 October, 1948
Léopold Sédar Senghor founds the Senegalese Democratic Bloc (BDS).
27 October, 1946
First commercially-sponsored television program airs (Geographically Speaking, sponsored by Bristol-Myers).
27 October, 1936
Mrs Wallis Simpson filed for divorce which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.
27 October, 1924
The Uzbek SSR is founded in the Soviet Union.
27 October, 1922
A referendum in Rhodesia rejects the countrys annexation to the South African Union.
27 October, 1916
Battle of Segale: Negus Mikael, marching on the Ethiopian capital in support of his son Emperor Iyasus V, is defeated by Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis, securing the throne for Empress Zauditu.
27 October, 1904
The first underground New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes biggest in United States of America, and one of the biggest in world.
27 October, 1870
Marshal François Achille Bazaine surrenders to Prussian forces at Metz along with 140,000 French soldiers in one of the biggest French defeats of the Franco-Prussian War.
27 October, 1838
Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state.
27 October, 1810
United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida.
27 October, 1807
Occupation of Portugal by French-Spanish troops.
27 October, 1806
The French Army enters in Berlin.
27 October, 1795
The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid, which establishes the boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S.
27 October, 1682
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded.
27 October, 1644
Second Battle of Newbury in the English Civil War.
27 October, 1553
Condemned as a heretic, Michael Servetus is burned at the stake just outside Geneva.
27 October, 1524
Italian Wars: The French troops lay siege to Pavia.
27 October, 1275
Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.
27 October, 939
Edmund I succeeds Athelstan as King of England.
27 October, 710
Saracen invasion of Sardinia.

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