Historical Events on Monday, 27th October

27/10/2019

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant founder and leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi kills himself and three children by detonating a suicide vest during the U.S. military Barisha raid in northwestern Syria.

The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and by its Arabic acronym Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist militant organisation and internationally unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied significant territory in Iraq and Syria in 2013, but lost most of it between 2017 and 2019. In 2014, the group proclaimed itself to be a worldwide caliphate, and claimed religious and political authority over all Muslims worldwide, a claim not accepted by the vast majority of Muslims. It is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and many countries around the world, including Muslim countries.

---

27/10/2018

A gunman opens fire on a Pittsburgh synagogue killing eleven and injuring six, including four police officers.

On October 27, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The congregation, along with New Light Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash, which also worshiped in the building, was attacked during Shabbat morning services. The perpetrator killed eleven people and wounded six, in the deadliest attack on a local Jewish community in American history.

---

Leicester City F.C. owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha dies in a helicopter crash along with four others after a Premier League match against West Ham United at the King Power Stadium in Leicester, England.

Leicester City Football Club is a professional football club based in Leicester, East Midlands, England. The club competes in the Championship, the second tier of English football.

---

27/10/2017

Catalonia declares independence from Spain.

Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy. Its territory is situated on the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, to the south of the Pyrenees mountain range. Catalonia is administratively divided into four provinces or eight vegueries (regions), which are in turn divided into 43 comarques. The capital and largest city, Barcelona, is the second-most populous municipality in Spain and the fifth-most populous urban area in the European Union.

---

27/10/2014

Britain withdraws from Afghanistan at the end of Operation Herrick, after 12 years four months and seven days.

Operation Herrick was the operational name for the British Armed Forces' operations during the War in Afghanistan, from 2002 to the end of combat operations in 2014. It consisted of the British contribution to the multinational NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission for the purposes of local security, training and development, and support to the American-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) counterterrorism mission. After years in the field, Operation Herrick increased in size and breadth to match ISAF's growing geographical intervention in Afghanistan: British troops numbered 9,500 at its peak in 2010–2012. The operation has also been referred to as the Fourth Anglo-Afghan War.

---

27/10/1999

Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing the Prime Minister and seven others.

The 1999 Armenian parliament shooting, commonly known in Armenia as October 27, was an attack on the Armenian National Assembly in the capital of Yerevan on 27 October 1999 by a group of five armed men led by Nairi Hunanyan that, among others, killed the two de facto decision-makers in the country's political leadership—Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan and Parliament Speaker Karen Demirchyan. Their reform-minded coalition had won a majority in a parliamentary election held in May of that year and had practically sidelined President Robert Kocharyan from the political scene.

---

27/10/1997

The 1997 Asian financial crisis causes a crash in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis gripped much of East and Southeast Asia during the late 1990s. The crisis began in Thailand in July 1997 before spreading to several other countries with a ripple effect, raising fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998–1999 was rapid, and worries of a meltdown quickly subsided.

---

27/10/1994

Gliese 229B is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified.

Gliese 229 is a multiple system composed of a red dwarf and two brown dwarfs, located 18.8 light-years away in the constellation Lepus. The primary component has 58% of the mass of the Sun, 55% of the Sun's radius, and a very low projected rotational velocity of 1 km/s at the stellar equator.

---

27/10/1993

Widerøe Flight 744 crashes in Overhalla Municipality, Norway, killing six people.

Widerøe Flight 744, also known as the Namsos Accident, was a scheduled flight of Widerøes Flyveselskap from Trondheim Airport, Værnes, via Namsos, to Rørvik Airport, Ryumsjøen, Norway. On 27 October 1993, the de Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter serving the flight underwent a controlled flight into terrain during its approach to Namsos Airport, Høknesøra. The incident occurred at 19:16:48 and killed six of the nineteen people on board, including the crew of two. The aircraft crashed at Berg in Overhalla Municipality because it held too low an altitude.

---

27/10/1992

United States Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is murdered by shipmate Terry M. Helvey for being gay, precipitating debate about gays in the military that results in the United States' "Don't ask, don't tell" military policy.

Allen R. Schindler Jr. was an American radioman petty officer third class in the United States Navy who was murdered for being gay. He was killed in a public toilet in Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan, by Terry M. Helvey, who acted with the aid of an accomplice, Charles E. Vins, in what Esquire called a "brutal murder". The case became synonymous with the debate concerning LGBT members of the military that had been brewing in the United States, culminating in the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

---

27/10/1991

Turkmenistan achieves independence from the Soviet Union.

Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the north, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, and the Caspian Sea to the west. It is one of six independent Turkic states. Ashgabat is the capital and largest city. With over 7 million people, Turkmenistan is the 35th most-populous country in Asia and has the lowest population of the Central Asian republics while being one of the most sparsely populated nations located on the Asian continent.

---

27/10/1988

Cold War: Ronald Reagan suspends construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow due to Soviet listening devices in the building structure.

The Embassy of the United States of America in Moscow is the diplomatic mission of the United States of America in the Russian Federation. The current embassy compound is in the Presnensky District of Moscow, across the street from the Russian White House and near the Moscow Zoo.

---

27/10/1986

The British 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.

The phrase Big Bang, used in reference to the sudden deregulation of financial markets, was coined to describe measures, including abolition of fixed commission charges and of the distinction between stockjobbers and stockbrokers on the London Stock Exchange and change from open outcry to screen-based electronic trading, effected by UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1986.

---

27/10/1981

Cold War: The Soviet submarine S-363 runs aground on the east coast of Sweden.

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.

---

27/10/1979

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gains its independence from the United Kingdom.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sometimes known simply as Saint Vincent or SVG, is an island country in the eastern Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies, at the southern end of the eastern border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. To the north lies Saint Lucia, to the east is Barbados and Grenada lies to the south.

---

27/10/1971

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is renamed Zaire.

The Republic of the Congo or First Congolese Republic, formerly the Belgian Congo and now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was a state in Central Africa that gained independence in 1960 and continued until a 1965 coup d'état by General Joseph Mobutu.

---

27/10/1964

Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of the Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launches his political career and comes to be known as "A Time for Choosing".

Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in the American conservative movement. The period encompassing his presidency is known as the Reagan era.

---

27/10/1962

Major Rudolf Anderson of the United States Air Force becomes the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane is shot down over Cuba by a Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missile.

Rudolf Anderson Jr. was an American Air Force major and pilot. He was the first recipient of the Air Force Cross, the U.S. military's and Air Force's second-highest award and decoration for valor. The only U.S. fatality by enemy fire during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Anderson was killed when his U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over Cuba. He had previously served in Korea during the Korean War.

---

By refusing to agree to the firing of a nuclear torpedo at a US warship, Vasily Arkhipov averts nuclear war.

Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov, also transliterated as Vasili Arkhipov, was a vice admiral in the Soviet Navy. He is best remembered for preventing nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

---

27/10/1961

NASA tests the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.

Saturn-Apollo 1 (SA-1) was the first flight of the Saturn I space launch vehicle, the first in the Saturn family, and first mission of the American Apollo program. The rocket was launched on October 27, 1961, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

---

27/10/1958

Iskander Mirza, the first President of Pakistan, is deposed by General Ayub Khan, who had been appointed the enforcer of martial law by Mirza 20 days earlier.

Iskander Ali Mirza was a Pakistani politician and military general who served as the fourth and last governor-general of Pakistan from 1955 to 1956, and then as the first president of Pakistan from the promulgation of the first constitution in 1956 until his overthrow in a coup d'état in 1958, following his declaration of martial law and unilateral abrogation of the constitution.

---

27/10/1954

Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.

Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr. was a United States Air Force (USAF) general and commander of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen.

---

27/10/1948

A deadly smog event begins in Donora, Pennsylvania, eventually killing 20 and sickening thousands.

The 1948 Donora smog, also called the Donora death fog, was an air pollution disaster that occurred in Donora, Pennsylvania, beginning on October 27, 1948, and lasting several days. It was caused by hydrogen fluoride and sulfur dioxide emissions from U.S. Steel's Donora Zinc Works and its American Steel & Wire plant during an atmospheric temperature inversion. It killed 20 people and caused respiratory problems for 6,000 of the 14,000 people living in Donora, a mill town on the Monongahela River 24 miles (39 km) southeast of Pittsburgh. The event is commemorated by the Donora Smog Museum.

---

27/10/1944

World War II: German forces capture Banská Bystrica during Slovak National Uprising thus bringing it to an end.

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.

---

27/10/1936

Abdication Crisis: Mrs. Wallis Simpson obtains her divorce, which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.

In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was in the process of divorcing her second.

---

27/10/1930

Ratifications are exchanged in London for the first London Naval Treaty go into effect immediately, further limiting the expensive naval arms race among its five signatories.

The London Naval Treaty, officially the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament, was an agreement between the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, and the United States that was signed on 22 April 1930. Seeking to address issues not covered in the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, which had created tonnage limits for each nation's surface warships, the new agreement regulated submarine warfare, further controlled cruisers and destroyers, and limited naval shipbuilding.

---

27/10/1924

The Uzbek SSR is founded in the Soviet Union.

The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (UzSSR), also known as Soviet Uzbekistan, the Uzbek SSR, or simply Uzbekistan and rarely Uzbekia, was a union republic of the Soviet Union. It was governed by the Uzbek branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the legal political party, from 1925 until 1990. From 1990 to 1991, it was a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with its own legislation.

---

27/10/1922

A referendum in Rhodesia rejects the country's annexation to the South African Union.

A referendum on the status of Southern Rhodesia was held in the colony on 27 October 1922. Voters, almost all of them white, were given the options of establishing responsible government or joining the Union of South Africa. After 59% voted in favour of responsible government, it was officially granted on 1 October 1923 with the implementation of the First Cabinet of Southern Rhodesia.

---

27/10/1919

The Fourth Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents is held by the Makhnovshchina at Oleksandrivsk.

The Regional Congresses of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents represented the "highest form of democratic authority" within the political system of the Makhnovshchina. They brought together delegates from the region's peasantry, industrial workers and insurgent soldiers, which would discuss the issues at hand and take their decisions back with them to local popular assemblies.

---

27/10/1916

Negus Mikael, marching on the Ethiopian capital in support of his son Emperor Iyasu V, is defeated by Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis, securing the throne for Empress Zewditu I.

The Battle of Segale was a civil conflict in the Ethiopian Empire between the supporters of Empress regent Zewditu and Lij Iyasu on 27 October 1916, and resulted in victory for Zewditu. Paul B. Henze states that "Segale was Ethiopia's greatest battle since Adwa" (1896).

---

27/10/1914

World War I: The new British battleship HMS Audacious is sunk by a minefield laid by the armed German merchant-cruiser Berlin.

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.

---

27/10/1907

Fifteen people are killed in Hungary when gendarmes opened fire on a crowd gathered at a church consecration.

The Černová massacre was a shooting that took place in Csernova, Kingdom of Hungary on 27 October 1907 in which 15 people were killed and many were wounded after gendarmes fired into a crowd of people gathering for the consecration of the local Catholic church. The shootings sparked protests in European and American press and turned the world's attention to the treatment of minorities in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary.

---

27/10/1870

Franco-Prussian War: Marshal Bazaine surrenders to Prussian forces at the conclusion of the Siege of Metz along with 140,000 French soldiers.

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871, the conflict was caused primarily by France's determination to reassert its dominant position in continental Europe, which appeared in question following the decisive Prussian victory over Austria in 1866.

---

27/10/1863

American Civil War: Union forces led by General William F. Smith defeat Confederate forces in the Battle of Brown's Ferry, opening up a supply line to the besieged city of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

---

27/10/1838

Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be killed.

Lilburn Williams Boggs was the sixth Governor of Missouri, from 1836 to 1840. He is now most widely remembered for his interactions with Joseph Smith and Porter Rockwell, and Missouri Executive Order 44, known as the "Extermination Order", issued in response to the ongoing conflict between church members and other settlers of Missouri. Boggs was also a key player in the Honey War of 1837.

---

27/10/1810

United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida.

West Florida was a region on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico that underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. Great Britain established West and East Florida in 1763 out of land acquired from France and Spain after the Seven Years' War. As its name suggests, it was formed out of the western part of former Spanish Florida, along with land taken from French Louisiana. Pensacola became West Florida's capital. The colony included about two thirds of what is now the Florida panhandle, as well as parts of the modern U.S. states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

---

27/10/1806

The French Army under Napoleon enters Berlin following the Prussian defeat at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt.

The fall of Berlin took place on 24 October 1806 when the Prussian capital of Berlin was captured by French forces in the aftermath of the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt. Berlin fell 15 days after the beginning of the war. The French Emperor Napoleon entered the city after three days, from which he issued his Berlin Decree implementing his Continental System. Large-scale plundering of Berlin took place.

---

27/10/1795

The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid, which establishes the boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S.

Pinckney's Treaty, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or the Treaty of Madrid, was signed on October 27, 1795, by the United States and Spain.

---

27/10/1775

King George III expands on his Proclamation of Rebellion in the Thirteen Colonies in his speech from the throne at the opening of Parliament.

George III was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with George as its king. He was concurrently duke and prince-elector of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was the first monarch of the House of Hanover who was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.

---

27/10/1726

J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, BWV 56, one of few works he called a cantata.

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.

---

27/10/1682

Philadelphia is founded in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia, colloquially referred to as Philly, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, and the sixth-most populous city in the United States, with a Census-estimated population of 1,574,281 in July 2025. The Philadelphia metropolitan area has 6.33 million residents and is the nation's ninth-largest metropolitan area. Philadelphia is known for its culture, cuisine, and history, maintaining contemporary influence in business and technology, sports, and music.

---

27/10/1674

The French garrison in Grave surrenders the town to a Dutch army after a difficult siege.

Grave is a city and former municipality in the Dutch province of North Brabant. The former municipality had a population of 12,486 in 2021. Grave is a member of the Dutch Association of Fortified Cities.

---

27/10/1644

Second Battle of Newbury in the English Civil War.

The Second Battle of Newbury was a battle of the First English Civil War fought on 27 October 1644, in Speen, adjoining Newbury in Berkshire. The battle was fought close to the site of the First Battle of Newbury, which took place in late September the previous year.

---

27/10/1553

Condemned as a heretic, Michael Servetus is burned at the stake just outside Geneva.

Michael Servetus was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance humanist. He was the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation, as discussed in Christianismi Restitutio (1553). He was a polymath versed in many sciences: mathematics, astronomy and meteorology, geography, human anatomy, medicine and pharmacology, as well as jurisprudence, translation, poetry, and the scholarly study of the Bible in its original languages.

---

27/10/1524

French troops lay siege to Pavia.

The Italian campaign of 1524–1525 was the final significant action of the Italian War of 1521–1526 launched by the French into Northern Italy. Led by Francis I of France, the French attempted to dislodge the Habsburgs from Italy in an attempt to control Italy for themselves. After the French invaded Lombardy, the campaign would then primarily consist of the French attempt to capture the city of Milan. However, after Francis's defeat at the Siege of Pavia, the French were driven out of Italy and Francis was taken prisoner.

---

27/10/1275

Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area. Located in the Dutch province of North Holland, Amsterdam is colloquially referred to as the "Venice of the North", for its large number of canals, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

---

27/10/0312

Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross.

Constantine I, also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a pivotal role in elevating the status of Christianity in Rome, the Edict of Milan decriminalising Christian practice and ceasing Christian persecution. This was a turning point in the Christianisation of the Roman Empire. He founded the city of Constantinople and made it the capital of the Empire, which it remained for over a millennium.

---