Historical Events on Tuesday, 27th January

27/01/2023

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.

Protests over the killing of Tyre Nichols began on January 27, 2023, following the release of police body camera and surveillance footage showing five Black officers from the Memphis Police Department beating Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man. The police assault on Nichols occurred on January 7, 2023, and he died three days later in a hospital. The five officers were subsequently fired and charged with second-degree murder. Protests first emerged in Memphis, Tennessee, and spread to several cities in the United States. Protesters demanded legal accountability for the officers responsible for Nichols death and for the enactment of police-reform measures.

---

A shooting at a synagogue in Neve Yaakov, East Jerusalem, kills seven people and injures three others.

On 27 January 2023, a Palestinian gunman killed at least seven civilians in the Israeli settlement of Neve Yaakov, in East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank. The suspect is also reported as having shot at worshippers exiting a synagogue, and, according to the police, was shot and killed after he opened fire on the attending officers. It was Israel's deadliest peacetime Palestinian attack since the Jerusalem yeshiva attack in 2008.

---

An attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Pasdaran, Tehran, kills one person and injures three others.

The embassy of Azerbaijan in Tehran was attacked on 27 January 2023, at around 08:00 a.m. local time. The perpetrator passed by the guard post with a Kalashnikov rifle and opened fire inside the embassy, while its staff tried to neutralize him. The head of the embassy's security service, Orkhan Asgarov, was killed in the attack, while two guards were injured.

---

27/01/2017

A naming ceremony for the chemical element tennessine takes place in the United States.

Tennessine is a synthetic element; it has symbol Ts and atomic number 117. It has the second-highest atomic number, the joint-highest atomic mass of all known elements, and is the penultimate element of the 7th period of the periodic table. It is named after the U.S. state of Tennessee, where key research institutions involved in its discovery are located.

---

27/01/2014

Rojava conflict: The Kobanî Canton declares its autonomy from the Syrian Arab Republic.

The Rojava Revolution, also known as the Rojava conflict is a political upheaval and military conflict taking place in northern Syria, known among Kurds as Western Kurdistan or Rojava.

---

27/01/2013

Two hundred and forty-two people die in a nightclub fire in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul.

On 27 January 2013, 242 people were killed and at least 630 others injured in a fire in the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The fire started between 2:00 and 2:30 a.m. (BRST) after a pyrotechnic ignited acoustic foam on the club's ceiling. As the electricity failed, clubgoers were unable to find the building's only exit. It is the second deadliest fire in Brazilian history, surpassed only by the Niterói circus fire of 1961.

---

27/01/2011

Arab Spring: The Yemeni Revolution begins as over 16,000 protestors demonstrate in Sanaa.

The Arab Spring was a series of pro-democracy anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to the death of Mohamed Bouazizi by self-immolation. From Tunisia, the protests initially spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. The rulers deposed include: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, all in 2011; and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012. Major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests took place in Djibouti, Mauritania, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām!.

---

Within Ursa Minor, H1504+65, a white dwarf with the hottest known surface temperature in the universe at 200,000 K, was documented.

Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Bear, is a constellation located in the far northern sky. As with the Great Bear, the tail of the Little Bear may also be seen as the handle of a ladle, hence the North American name, Little Dipper: seven stars with four in its bowl like its partner the Big Dipper. Ursa Minor was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Ursa Minor has traditionally been important for navigation, particularly by mariners, because of Polaris being the north pole star.

---

27/01/2010

The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis ends when Porfirio Lobo Sosa becomes the new President of Honduras.

The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis was a political crisis in Honduras over plans by President Manuel Zelaya to hold a popular referendum to either rewrite the Constitution of Honduras or write a new one.

---

Apple announces the iPad.

Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley, best known for its consumer electronics, software and online services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Company by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, the company was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. the following year. It was renamed to its current name in 2007 as the company had expanded its focus from computers to consumer electronics. Apple is one of the Big Tech companies.

---

27/01/2003

The first selections for the National Recording Registry are announced by the Library of Congress.

The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and inform or reflect life in the United States". The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording Preservation Board, whose members are appointed by the librarian of Congress. The recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry form a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress.

---

27/01/2002

An explosion at a military storage facility in Lagos, Nigeria, kills at least 1,100 people and displaces over 20,000 others.

The Lagos armoury explosion was the accidental detonation of a large stock of high explosives at a military storage facility in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, on 27 January 2002. The fires created by the debris from this explosion burnt down a large section of Northern Lagos, and created a panic that spread to other areas. As people fled the flames, many stumbled into a concealed canal and drowned. The explosion and its aftermath are believed to have killed at least 1,100 people and displaced over 20,000, with many thousands injured or homeless. The government of Nigeria launched an enquiry, which blamed the Nigerian Army for failing to properly maintain the base, or to decommission it when instructed to do so in 2001.

---

27/01/1996

In a military coup, Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane.

The 1996 Nigerien coup d'état was a military coup d'état which occurred on 27 January 1996 in Niamey, Niger. It ousted Niger's first democratically elected president, Mahamane Ousmane after nearly three years in power and installed General Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara as head of state. Prime Minister Hama Amadou was arrested in the coup and several soldiers and presidential guards were killed in the fighting.

---

Germany first observes the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, is an international memorial day on 27 January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, which resulted in the genocide of two-thirds of the European Jewish population along with numerous individuals of other minority groups, by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945: an attempt to implement its "Final Solution" to the Jewish question. The choice of 27 January for the annual commemoration aligns with the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army in 1945.

---

27/01/1983

The pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel, the world's longest sub-aqueous tunnel (53.85 km) between the Japanese islands of Honshū and Hokkaidō, breaks through.

The Seikan Tunnel is a 53.85-kilometre (33.5-mile) dual-gauge railway tunnel in Japan, with a 23.3-kilometre (14.5-mile) segment running beneath the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates Aomori Prefecture on Honshu, Japan's main island, from the northern island of Hokkaido. The tunnel's track level lies approximately 100 metres (330 ft) below the seabed and 240 metres (790 ft) below sea level. Following several decades of planning and construction, the tunnel opened on 13 March 1988.

---

27/01/1980

Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, six American diplomats secretly escape hostilities in Iran in the culmination of the Canadian Caper.

The Iran hostage crisis began on November 4, 1979, when 66 Americans, including diplomats and other civilian personnel, were taken hostage at the Embassy of the United States in Tehran, with 52 of them being held until January 20, 1981. The incident occurred after the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line stormed and occupied the building in the months following the Iranian Revolution. With support from Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Iranian Revolution and would eventually establish the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran, the hostage-takers demanded that the United States extradite Iranian king Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been granted asylum by the Carter administration for cancer treatment. Notable among the assailants were Hossein Dehghan, Mohammad Ali Jafari, and Mohammad Bagheri. The hostage crisis contributed to a dramatic decline in Iran–United States relations. After 444 days, it came to an end with the signing of the Algiers Accords between the Iranian and American governments; Iran's king had died in Cairo, Egypt, on July 27, 1980.

---

27/01/1973

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.

The Paris Peace Accords, officially the Agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Viet-Nam, was a peace agreement signed on 27 January 1973 to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. It included a main treaty and accompanying annexes. It was scheduled to take effect at 8:00 AM Saigon time the following day. The agreement was signed by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam, the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), and the United States. The PRG represented the Viet Cong, a South Vietnamese opposition movement de facto controlled by the North. US ground forces had begun to withdraw from Vietnam in 1969, and had suffered from deteriorating morale during the withdrawal. By the beginning of 1972 those that remained had very little involvement in combat. The last American infantry battalions withdrew in August 1972. Most air and naval forces, and most advisers, also were gone from South Vietnam by that time, though air and naval forces not based in South Vietnam were still playing a large role in the war. The Paris Agreement removed the remaining US forces, and direct US military intervention ended. Fighting between the three remaining powers did not stop on 28 January, even for an hour. The agreement was not formally designated a treaty, and President Nixon did not ask the US Senate to ratify it.

---

27/01/1967

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.

The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived in 1960 in the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidency during Project Mercury and executed after Project Gemini. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in his address to the U.S. Congress on May 25, 1961.

---

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.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

---

27/01/1965

South Vietnamese Prime Minister Trần Văn Hương is removed by the military junta of Nguyễn Khánh.

Trần Văn Hương was a South Vietnamese politician who was the penultimate president of South Vietnam for a week in April 1975 before its surrender to the communist forces of North Vietnam. Before ascending to the presidency, he served as vice president under President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu since October 1971 after being elected on a joint ticket with Thiệu in the 1971 South Vietnamese presidential election. Prior to that, he was prime minister for three months from November 1964 to January 1965 under the supervision of a military junta led by General Nguyen Khanh; during this time, there was widespread civil unrest from the Buddhist majority and power struggles with the military. He also served as prime minister again from May 1968 to August 1969.

---

27/01/1961

The Soviet submarine S-80 sinks when its snorkel malfunctions, flooding the boat.

S-80 was a diesel-electric submarine of the Soviet Navy.

---

27/01/1951

Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with Operation Ranger.

Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of their explosion. Over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been carried out since 1945. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to signal strength. Because of their destruction and fallout, testing has seen opposition by civilians as well as governments, with international bans having been agreed on. Thousands of tests have been performed, with most in the second half of the 20th century.

---

27/01/1945

World War II: The Soviet 322nd Rifle Division liberates the remaining inmates of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The 322nd Rifle Division was a standard Red Army rifle division during World War II. It is most notable for liberating Auschwitz concentration camp as part of the 60th Army on January 27, 1945, in the course of the Vistula-Oder offensive. Prior to this the division also distinguished itself during the second liberation of Zhitomir on the last day of 1943. It received further distinctions for its service in western Ukraine and in Poland. Along with many other distinguished Soviet formations it was disbanded with the coming of peace.

---

27/01/1944

World War II: The 872-day Siege of Leningrad is lifted.

The siege of Leningrad was a military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 to 1944. Leningrad, the country's second largest city, was besieged by Germany and Finland for 872 days, but never captured. The siege was the most destructive in history and possibly the most deadly, causing an estimated 1.5 million deaths, from a prewar population of 3.2 million. It was not classified as a war crime at the time, but since then, some historians have classified it as a genocide due to the intentional destruction of the city and the systematic starvation of its civilian population.

---

27/01/1943

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.

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. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. 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.

---

27/01/1939

First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is an American single-seat, twin-engined fighter aircraft that was used during World War II. Developed for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) by the Lockheed Corporation, the P-38 incorporated a distinctive twin boom design with a central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament. Along with its use as a general fighter, the P-38 was used in various aerial warfare roles, including as a highly effective fighter-bomber, a night fighter, and a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks. The P-38 was also used as a bomber-pathfinder, guiding streams of medium and heavy bombers, or even other P-38s equipped with bombs, to their targets.

---

27/01/1928

Bundaberg tragedy: a diphtheria vaccine is contaminated with Staph. aureus bacterium, resulting in the deaths of twelve children in the Australian town of Bundaberg.

The Bundaberg tragedy was a medical disaster that occurred in January 1928, resulting in the deaths of 12 children in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia. A royal commission concluded that the deaths were caused by the contamination of a diphtheria vaccine with the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus.

---

27/01/1927

Ibn Saud takes the title of King of Nejd.

Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud ;, known in the Western world as Ibn Saud, was a Najdi statesman and religious leader who became the founder and first king of Saudi Arabia, reigning from 23 September 1932 until his death in 1953. He had ruled parts of the kingdom since 1902, having previously been Emir, Sultan, King of Nejd, and King of Hejaz.

---

27/01/1924

Six days after his death, Vladimir Lenin's body is carried into a specially erected mausoleum.

On Monday, 21 January 1924, at 18:50 EET, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the October Revolution and the first leader and founder of the Soviet Union, died in Gorki aged 53 after falling into a coma. The official cause of death was recorded as an incurable disease of the blood vessels. Lenin was given a state funeral and then buried in a specially erected mausoleum on 27 January. A commission of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) was in charge of organising the funeral.

---

27/01/1918

Beginning of the Finnish Civil War.

The Finnish Civil War was a civil war in 1918 fought for the leadership and control of recently independent Finland between White Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic. The clashes took place in the context of the national, political, and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe. The belligerents were the paramilitary Red Guards, led by a section of the Social Democratic Party with backup of the Russian bolsheviks, and the paramilitary White Guards of the senate. General C. G. E. Mannerheim led the White Guards with major assistance by both the Finnish Jäger Battalion trained in Germany and the German Imperial Army, along the German goal to control Fennoscandia and Petrograd of Russia. The Reds, composed of industrial and agrarian working class people, controlled the cities and industrial centres of southern Finland. The Whites, composed of land owners and the middle and upper class, controlled the rural central and northern Finland.

---

27/01/1916

World War I: The British government passes the Military Service Act that introduces conscription in the United Kingdom.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

---

27/01/1880

Thomas Edison receives a patent for his incandescent lamp.

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory.

---

27/01/1874

Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov premieres in Mariinsky Theatre in St.Petersburg.

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as "The Five." He was an innovator of Russian music in the Romantic period and strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music.

---

27/01/1869

Boshin War: Tokugawa rebels establish the Ezo Republic in Hokkaidō.

The Republic of Ezo was a short-lived separatist state established in 1869 on the island of Ezo, now Hokkaido, by a part of the former military of the Tokugawa shogunate at the end of the Bakumatsu period in Japan. It was the first government to attempt to institute democracy in Japan, though voting was allowed only to the samurai caste. The Republic of Ezo existed for five months before being annexed by the newly established Empire of Japan.

---

27/01/1868

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.

The Boshin War , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a coalition seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperial Court.

---

27/01/1825

The U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory (in what is present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears".

The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

---

27/01/1820

A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovers the Antarctic continent, approaching the Antarctic coast.

The Russian Empire spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about 22,800,000 km2 (8,800,000 sq mi), roughly one-sixth of the world's landmass, making it the third-largest empire in history, behind only the British and Mongol empires. It also colonized Alaska between 1799 and 1867. The empire's 1897 census, the only one it conducted, found a population of 125.6 million with considerable ethnic, linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity.

---

27/01/1785

The University of Georgia is founded, the first state-chartered public university in the United States.

The University of Georgia is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the first state-chartered public university in the United States. It is the flagship school of the University System of Georgia.

---

27/01/1776

American Revolutionary War: Henry Knox's "noble train of artillery" arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

---

27/01/1759

Spanish forces clash with indigenous Huilliches of southern Chile in the battle of Río Bueno.

The Huilliche, Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group in Chile and Argentina. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu and, as the Cunco or Veliche subgroup, the northern half of Chiloé Island. The Huilliche are the principal Indigenous people of those regions. According to Ricardo E. Latcham the term Huilliche started to be used in Spanish after the second founding of Valdivia in 1645, adopting the usage of the Mapuches of Araucanía for the southern Mapuche tribes. Huilliche means 'southerners' A genetic study showed significant affinities between Huilliches and Indigenous peoples east of the Andes, which suggests but does not prove a partial origin in present-day Argentina.

---

27/01/1726

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.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos; solo instrumental works such as the Cello Suites and Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schübler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. He is known for his mastery of counterpoint, as heard in The Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue. Felix Mendelssohn precipitated the Bach Revival with a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829. Ever since, Bach has been acclaimed as one of the greatest composers of classical music.

---

27/01/1695

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.

Mustafa II was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1695 to 1703.

---

27/01/1606

Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, ending with their execution on January 31.

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby.

---

27/01/1343

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.

Pope Clement VI, born Pierre Roger, was head of the Catholic Church from 7 May 1342 to his death, in December 1352. He was the fourth Avignon pope. Clement reigned during the first visitation of the Black Death (1348–1350), during which he granted remission of sins to all who died of the plague.

---

27/01/1302

Dante Alighieri is condemned in absentia and exiled from Florence.

Dante Alighieri, widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian poet, writer, and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.

---

27/01/1186

Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, marries Constance of Sicily.

Henry VI, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was King of Germany from 1169 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1191 until his death. From 1194 he was also King of Sicily as the husband and co-ruler of Queen Constance I.

---

27/01/0945

The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown and forced to become monks by Constantine VII, who becomes sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

Stephen Lekapenos or Lecapenus was the second son of the Byzantine emperor Romanos I Lekapenos, and co-emperor from 924 to 945. With his younger brother Constantine, he deposed Romanos I in December 944, but they were overthrown and exiled a few weeks later by their brother in law, the legitimate emperor Constantine VII. Stephen lived out his life in exile on the island of Lesbos, where he died on Easter 963.

---

27/01/0532

Nika riots in Constantinople fail.

The Nika riots, Nika revolt or Nika sedition took place against Byzantine emperor Justinian I in Constantinople over the course of a week in 532 AD. They are often regarded as the most violent riots in the city's history, with nearly half of Constantinople being burned or destroyed and tens of thousands of people killed.

---

27/01/0417

Pope Innocent I declares Pelagius and his follower Caelestius excommunicated unless they return to orthodoxy.

Pope Innocent I was the bishop of Rome from 401 to his death on 12 March 417. From the beginning of his papacy, he was seen as the general arbitrator of ecclesiastical disputes in both the East and the West. He confirmed the prerogatives of the Archbishop of Thessalonica, and issued a decretal on disciplinary matters referred to him by the Bishop of Rouen. He defended the exiled John Chrysostom and consulted with the bishops of Africa concerning the Pelagian controversy, confirming the decisions of the African synods.

---

27/01/0098

Trajan succeeds his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor.

AD 98 (XCVIII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus and Traianus. The denomination AD 98 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

---