On this day: May 27

Events on May 27

• 1703 Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg. Wikipedia
• 1798 The Pitt–Tierney duel takes place on Putney Heath outside London. A bloodless duel between the prime minister of Great Britain William Pitt the Younger and his political opponent George Tierney. Wikipedia
• 1832 An Egyptian army under Ibrahim Pasha captures Acre from the Ottomans after a five-months siege. Wikipedia
• 1863 American Civil War: The first Union infantry assault of the Siege of Port Hudson occurs. Wikipedia
• 1874 The first group of Dorsland trekkers under the leadership of Gert Alberts leaves Pretoria. Wikipedia
• 1919 The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight. Wikipedia
• 1930 The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public. Wikipedia
• 1937 In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California. Wikipedia
• 1937 The Golden Gate Bridge, at the time the world's longest suspension bridge by span, opened between San Francisco and Marin County, California. Wikipedia
• 1940 World War II: Ninety-seven soldiers of the British Royal Norfolk Regiment were killed after surrendering to German forces. Wikipedia
• 1940 World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops; two survive. Wikipedia
• 1941 World War II: The German battleship Bismarck was sunk by gun and torpedo fire by the British battleships HMS Rodney and HMS King George V and supporting cruisers. Wikipedia
• 1941 World War II: U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency". Wikipedia
• 1942 World War II: In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich is fatally wounded in Prague; he dies of his injuries eight days later. Wikipedia
• 1950 The Linnanmäki amusement park is opened for the first time in Helsinki. Wikipedia
• 1960 In Turkey, a military coup removes President Celâl Bayar and the rest of the democratic government from office. Wikipedia
• 1963 American singer Bob Dylan released The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, his first album to include a significant number of original songs. Wikipedia
• 1977 A plane crash at José Martí International Airport in Havana, Cuba, kills 67. Wikipedia
• 1988 Somaliland War of Independence: The Somali National Movement launches a major offensive against Somali government forces in Hargeisa and Burao, then the second- and third-largest cities of Somalia. Wikipedia
• 1995 Bosnian War: Forces of the Army of Republika Srpska captured a United Nations post at Vrbanja Bridge in Sarajevo; six soldiers of both sides were killed when French forces retook the post later in the day. Wikipedia
• 1996 First Chechen War: Russian president Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechen rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire. Wikipedia
• 1998 Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot. Wikipedia
• 2001 Members of Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist separatist group, seize twenty hostages from an affluent island resort on Palawan in the Philippines; the hostage crisis would not be resolved until June 2002. Wikipedia
• 2006 An earthquake registering 6.4 Mw struck near the city of Yogyakarta on the southern side of the Indonesian island of Java, killing more than 5,700 people. Wikipedia
• 2006 The 6.4 Mw Yogyakarta earthquake shakes central Java with an MSK intensity of VIII (Damaging), leaving more than 5,700 dead and 37,000 injured. Wikipedia
• 2016 Barack Obama is the first president of the United States to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and meet Hibakusha. Wikipedia

Born on May 27

• 1332 Ibn Khaldun, Tunisian historian and theologian (died 1406) Wikipedia
• 1378 Zhu Quan, Chinese military commander, historian and playwright (died 1448)[citation needed] Wikipedia
• 1867 Arnold Bennett, English author and playwright (died 1931) Wikipedia
• 1884 Max Brod, Czech journalist, author, and composer (died 1968) Wikipedia
• 1894 Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French physician and author (died 1961) Wikipedia
• 1894 Dashiell Hammett, American detective novelist and screenwriter (died 1961) Wikipedia
• 1897 John Cockcroft, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1967) Wikipedia
• 1899 Johannes Türn, Estonian chess and draughts player (died 1993) Wikipedia
• 1907 Rachel Carson, American biologist, environmentalist, and author (died 1964) Wikipedia
• 1911 Hubert Humphrey, American journalist and politician, 38th Vice President of the United States (died 1978) Wikipedia
• 1911 Vincent Price, American actor (died 1993) Wikipedia
• 1918 Yasuhiro Nakasone, Japanese commander and politician, 45th Prime Minister of Japan (died 2019) Wikipedia
• 1922 Christopher Lee, English actor (died 2015) Wikipedia
• 1923 Henry Kissinger, German-American political scientist and politician, 56th United States Secretary of State, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2023) Wikipedia
• 1935 Mal Evans, British road manager of the Beatles (died 1976) Wikipedia
• 1955 Richard Schiff, American actor, director, and producer Wikipedia
• 1956 Giuseppe Tornatore, Italian director and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1967 Paul Gascoigne, English international footballer, coach, and manager Wikipedia
• 1971 Paul Bettany, English actor Wikipedia
• 1987 Gervinho, Ivorian footballer Wikipedia
• 1994 João Cancelo, Portuguese footballer Wikipedia
• 1999 Lily-Rose Depp, French-American actress and model Wikipedia

Died on May 27

• 927 Simeon I of Bulgaria first Bulgarian Emperor (born 864) Wikipedia
• 1525 Thomas Müntzer, German mystic and theologian (born 1488) Wikipedia
• 1564 John Calvin, French pastor and theologian (born 1509) Wikipedia
• 1610 François Ravaillac, French assassin of Henry IV of France (born 1578) Wikipedia
• 1707 Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan, French mistress of Louis XIV of France (born 1640) Wikipedia
• 1797 François-Noël Babeuf, French journalist (born 1760) Wikipedia
• 1840 Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (born 1782) Wikipedia
• 1910 Robert Koch, German physician and microbiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1843) Wikipedia
• 1939 Joseph Roth, Austrian-French journalist and author (born 1894) Wikipedia
• 1964 Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st Prime Minister of India (born 1889) Wikipedia
• 1987 John Howard Northrop, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1891) Wikipedia
• 1988 Ernst Ruska, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1906) Wikipedia
• 2007 Ed Yost, American inventor, created the modern hot air balloon (born 1919) Wikipedia
• 2009 Clive Granger, Welsh-American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1934) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Armed Forces Day (Nicaragua) Wikipedia
• Children's Day (Nigeria) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Augustine of Canterbury Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Lojze Grozde Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Bruno of Würzburg Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Eutropius of Orange Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Hildebert Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Julius the Veteran Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: May 27 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Mother's Day (Bolivia) Wikipedia
• Navy Day (Japan) Wikipedia
• Slavery Abolition Day (Guadeloupe, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin) Wikipedia
• Start of National Reconciliation Week (Australia) Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “May 27” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.