Today in History - April 27
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1124 Apr 27,
Alexander I, king of Scotland (1107-24), died.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1296 Apr 27, England’s King Edward
I defeated the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar. He deposed King John and
exiled him to France.
(HN, 4/27/99)
1509 Apr 27, Pope Julius II
excommunicated the republic of Venice. The pope lifted the ban in
February 1510.
(AP, 4/27/07)
1521 April 27, Ferdinand Magellan
(50), Portuguese explorer, was killed by natives in the Philippines.
[see Apr 26]
(AP, 4/27/99)
1565 Apr 27, First Spanish
settlement in Philippines was established in Cebu City.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1570 Apr 27, Pope Pius V
excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I [see Feb 25].
(AP, 4/27/07)
1623 Apr 27, Johann Adam Reincken,
composer, was born.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1646 Apr 27, King Charles I fled
Oxford.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1650 Apr 27, Scottish general
Montrose was defeated.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1662 Apr 27, Netherlands and
France signed a treaty of alliance in Paris.
(http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1767012)
1677 Apr 27, Colonel Jeffreys
became the governor of Virginia.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1702 Apr 27, Jean Bart (51),
French captain, sea hero (Escape out of Plymouth), died.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1737 Apr 27, Edward Gibbon,
historian, writer of “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” was born.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1759 Apr 27, Mary Wollstonecraft
Godwin (d.1797), English writer, feminist (Female Reader), was born.
"The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on,
and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no
barriers to break its force."
(AP, 11/10/97)(MC, 4/27/02)
1773 Apr 27, British Parliament
passed the Tea Act. [see May 10, 1772]
(HN, 4/27/98)
1791 Apr 27, Samuel Finley Breece
Morse, inventor, was born in Boston. Morse was a well-known painter who
gained a wide reputation as a portrait artist. He graduated from Yale
in 1810 and then studied painting in England for several years. Morse
painted two notable portraits of Lafayette, was a founder of the
National Academy of Design in 1826 and became professor of painting and
sculpture at New York University in 1832-a position he held until his
death in 1872. Morse invented the first practical recording telegraph
in America and developed the Morse code, revolutionizing communication.
(HN, 4/27/99)(HNQ, 2/26/00)
1802 Apr 27, Abraham Louis
Niedermeyer, composer, was born.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1805 Apr 27, US navy ships began
to bombard the Tripoli port of Derna. Mercenaries gathered in Egypt and
a small contingent of US Marines under former Tunis consul William
Eaton attacked Tripoli and captured the city of Derna [later part of
Libya].
(AP, 4/27/97)(HN, 4/27/98)(ON, 10/06, p.9)
1812 Apr 27, Friedrich von Flotow,
composer (Martha), was born.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1813 Apr 27, Americans forces
under Gen. Zebulon M. Pike (34) captured York (present day Toronto),
the seat of government in Ontario; Pike was killed.
(HN, 4/27/99)(MC, 4/27/02)
1822 Apr 27, Ulysses S. Grant
(d.1885), general and 18th U.S. president (1869-1877), was born in
Point Pleasant [Hiram], Ohio.
(AP, 4/27/97)(HN, 4/27/02)
1824 Apr 27, William Richard
Bexfield, composer, was born.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1838 Apr 27, Fire destroyed half
of Charleston.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1840 Apr 27, Edward Whymper, first
to climb the Matterhorn on the border of Switzerland and Italy, was
born.
(WUD, 1994, p.885)(HN, 4/27/98)
1849 Apr 27, Italian revolutionary
Garibaldi took control of the defenses of Rome. He and his family had
returned to Italy from Uruguay in 1848 to fight on behalf of the newly
declared Republic of Rome, which had taken control of Rome and expelled
Pope Pius IX, who opposed the goals of Italian nationalism.
(ON, 10/06, p.5)
1857 Apr 27, Establishment of
Jewish congregations in Lower Austria prohibited.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1859 Apr 27, "Pomona" sank in
North Atlantic drowning all 400 aboard.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1860 Apr 27, Thomas J Jackson (the
future "Stonewall") was assigned to command Harpers Ferry.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1861 Apr 27, President Lincoln
suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1861 Apr 27, West Virginia seceded
from Virginia after Virginia seceded from the Union.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1863 Apr 27, Battle of Streight's
raid: Tuscumbia to Cedar Bluff, AL.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1863 Apr 27, The Army of the
Potomac began marching on Chancellorsville.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1865 Apr 27, John Wilkes Booth was
killed by Federal Cavalry in Virginia. In 2004 Michael W. Kauffman
authored “American Brutus.” In 2006 James L. Swanson authored “Manhunt:
The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. [see Apr 26]
(HN, 4/27/98)(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.P10)(WSJ, 1/28/07,
p.P10)
1865 Apr 27, The steamer Sultana
caught fire and burned after one of its boilers exploded on the
Mississippi River near Memphis, Tenn., killing more than 1,400 paroled
Union prisoners on their way home. One account reported 1,547 people
dead. At least 1,238 of the 2,031 passengers, mostly former Union POWs,
were killed.
(AP, 4/27/97)(SFC, 3/13/99, p.E6)(HN, 4/27/99)(MC,
4/27/02)
1867 Apr 27, Charles Gounod's
Opera "Romeo et Juliette" was produced in Paris.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1870 Apr 27, Heinrich Schliemann
discovered Troy.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1877 Apr 27, Jules Massenet's
Opera "Le Roi de Lahore" was produced in Paris.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1877 Apr 27, President Hayes
removed Federal troops from LA. Reconstruction ended. [see Apr 24]
(MC, 4/27/02)
1881 Apr 27, Pogroms against
Russian Jews started in Elisabethgrad.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1882 Apr 27, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
US poet, philosopher, author, essayist, died. He was one of the
original members of the Transcendental Club with Thoreau and Orestes
Brownson.
(HNQ, 6/14/98)(WSJ, 5/28/99, p.W11)(MC, 4/27/02)
1886 Apr 27, A band of Apaches led
by Geronimo attacked a ranch west of Fort Huachuca and killed 3
American citizens.
(ON, 10/06, p.1)
1891 Apr 27, Sergei Sergeyevich
Prokofiev, composer, was born.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1892 Apr 27, Louis Victor de
Broglie, physicist (studied electrons), was born.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1896 Apr 27, Wallace Hume
Carothers (d.1937), American chemist, was born. Carothers became a
brilliant organic chemist who, in addition to first developing nylon,
also helped lay the groundwork for Neoprene.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Carothers)
1896 Apr 27, Rogers Hornsby
(d.1963), among the greatest hitters in baseball history, was born in
Texas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Hornsby)
1897 Apr 27, Grant's Tomb was
dedicated.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1900 Apr 27, Walter Lantz,
cartoonist, creator of Woody Woodpecker, was born.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1904 Apr 27, Cecil Day-Lewis,
Irish poet, father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis, was born.
(HN, 4/27/01)
1909 Apr 27, In Turkey April 27
Reshad Efendi, the brother of Sultan Abdulhamid II, was proclaimed
Sultan Mehmed V.
(HN,
4/27/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Hamid_II)
1915 Apr 27, Alexander N. Scriabin
(43), Russian pianist, composer (Prometheus), died.
(SFC, 2/16/99, p.B1)(MC, 4/27/02)
1920 Apr 27, Pogrom leader
Petljoera (Petlyura) declared Ukraine Independence.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1922 Apr 27, Fritz Lang's "Dr
Mabuse, der Spieler" premiered in Berlin.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1927 Apr 27, Coretta Scott King,
civil rights activist, wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., was born.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1927 Apr 27, Actress Mae West was
released from jail after 10 days. She and the entire cast and producers
of her Broadway play “Sex” had been thrown in jail. The 1926 Mae West
comedy-drama "Sex" caused a scandal and police closed it down after 375
performances.
(WSJ, 11/18/06, p.P10)(SSFC, 4/15/01, DB p.35)(SFC,
6/24/02, p.D2)
1931 Apr 27, Hawaii recorded a
record 100 degrees in Pahala.
(SFC, 4/27/09, p.D10)
1931 Apr 27, Igor Oistrach,
Russian violinist, son of David Oistrach, was born.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1932 Apr 27, American poet Hart
Crane (b.1899) drowned after jumping from a steamer while en route to
New York. In 1967 R.W.B. Lewis (d. 2002) authored "The Poetry of
Hart Crane."
(AP, 4/27/97)(SFC, 6/17/02, p.B5)
1935 Apr 27, US Congress declared
soil erosion "a national menace" in an act establishing the Soil
Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture (formerly the
Soil Erosion Service in the U.S. Department of Interior). Under the
direction of Hugh H. Bennett, the SCS developed extensive conservation
programs that retained topsoil and prevented irreparable damage to the
land. Farming techniques such as strip cropping, terracing, crop
rotation, contour plowing, and cover crops were advocated. Farmers were
paid to practice soil-conserving farming techniques.
(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm)(Sm, 3/06, p.111)
1937 Apr 27, Sandy Dennis, actress
(Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), was born in Nebraska.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1937 Apr 27, The Franklin
Roosevelt administration began distributing the nation’s first Social
Security checks.
(AP, 4/27/06)(AH, 4/07, p.14)
1937 Apr 27, German bombers of the
Condor Legion conducted follow up raids at Guernica, Spain. [see Apr 26]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica)
1937 Apr 27, Antonio Gramsci
(b.1891), Italian communist, philosopher and political theorist, died.
He said that to eliminate the bourgeois state one must seize the
institutions that reproduce the dominant class’s thought patterns.
(Econ, 8/22/09,
p.33)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci)
1938 Apr 27, King Zog of Albania
married Geraldine Apponyi (22) of Hungary.
(SFC, 10/28/02, p.A17)
1941 Apr 27, Judith Blegen, opera
singer (Papagena-Magic Flute), was born in Missoula, Mont.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1941 Apr 27, The Greek army
capitulated to the Germans. Greece and the Greek islands were secured
by Hitler.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A23)(HN, 4/27/98)
1942 Apr 27, The 1st convoys of
Japanese detainees arrived at the Tanforan detention center south of
San Francisco. The assembly center remained in operation for 169 days
after which detainees were transferred to relocation camps. Most of the
Tanforan detainees were transferred to Abraham, Utah.
(Ind, 2/2/02, 5A)
1942 Apr 27, Tornado destroyed
Pryor, Oklahoma, killing 100 and injuring 300.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1942 Apr 27, Belgium Jews were
forced to wear stars.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1944 Apr 27, Dr. H. Corwin Hinshaw
(d.2000) first treated 4 tuberculosis-infected guinea pigs with the
newly developed streptomycin antibiotic. The animals were cured.
Hinshaw was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1952 but the prize went to
Dr. Selman a. Waksman of Rutgers, who discovered streptomycin.
(SFC, 1/11/01, p.C16)
1945 Apr 27, August Wilson, US
playwright (Fences, Pulitzer 1987), was born.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1945 Apr 27, US 5th army entered
Genoa.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1945 Apr 27, Italian partisans
captured Mussolini.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1946 Apr 27, 1st radar
installation aboard a commercial ship was installed.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1947 Apr 27, It was "Babe Ruth
Day" at Yankee Stadium as baseball fans across the country honored the
ailing star.
(AP, 4/27/97)
1950 Apr 27, South Africa passed
the Group Areas Act, formally segregating races.
(HN, 4/27/98)(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T8)
1953 Apr 27, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450: Security Requirements for
Government Employment. The order listed "sexual perversion" as a
condition for firing a federal employee and for denying employment to
potential applicants. Homosexuality, moral perversion, and communism
were categorized as national security threats; the issue of homosexual
federal workers had become a dire federal personnel policy concern.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bblwc)
1955 Apr 27, The US government
suspended the use of all Salk vaccine manufactured by Cutter
Laboratories in Berkeley, Ca., pending the investigation of 7-14 cases
among children inoculated with the company’s vaccine.
(SFC, 4/22/05, p.F3)
1956 Apr 27, Heavyweight boxer
Rocky Marciano announced his retirement. Marciano, with 43 knockouts to
his credit, retired having won every fight in his professional career.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Marciano)
1957 Apr 27, Mario A. Gianini,
creator of the maraschino cherry, died.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1958 Apr 27, Billy Graham began a
6-week Bay Area crusade at the Cow Palace in Daly City, Ca. Some 18,000
crowded inside as another 5,000 stood in the parking lot. Graham began
a 3-day revival crusade at the Cow Palace that drew nearly 700,000
people.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.D1)(SSFC, 4/27/08, DB p.58)
1959 Apr 27, US State Dept.
announced small arms stored in Canal Zone will be provided to
Panamanian forces to repel Cuban invaders.
(DBD, p.824)
1959 Apr 27, Gordon Armstrong,
inventor of the baby incubator, died.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1959 Apr 27, Liu Shaoqi (d.1969)
was named president of China in the wake of the Great Leap Forward.
(AFP,
9/6/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Shaoqi)
1960 Apr 27, The 1st atomic
powered electric-drive submarine was launched at Tullibee.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1960 Apr 27, South Korean pres
Syngman Rhee resigned. The government of Syngman Rhee was toppled.
Parliament began investigations of alleged summary executions during
the 1950-1953 war.
(SFC, 4/21/00, p.A19)(MC, 4/27/02)
1960 Apr 27, Togo, a UN Trust
territory under French administration, gained independence. Sylvanus
Olympio became the 1st chief of state.
(PC, 1992, p.973)(EWH, 1st ed., p.1170)
1961 Apr 27, United Kingdom
granted Sierra Leone independence.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A10)(HN, 4/27/98)
1963 Apr 27, Cuban premier Fidel
Castro arrived in Moscow.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1965 Apr 27, RC Duncan patented
"Pampers," a disposable diaper.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1965 Apr 27, Edward R. Murrow
(b.1908), newscaster (Person to Person), died of cancer in Pawling,
N.Y. He had filed radio broadcast from London during the WW II German
air raids. In 1986 A.M. Sperber authored “Murrow: His Life and Times.”
(AP, 4/27/05)(SFC, 2/10/06, p.E11)(WSJ, 12/1/07,
p.W10)
1967 Apr 27, Expo '67 was
officially opened in Montreal by Canadian Prime Minister Lester B.
Pearson. The urban theme park, La Ronde, was built on the Ile
Sainte-Helene for the exposition and continues on to today. The Expo
featured the big-screen, multi-projector film Polar Life. This led to
the formation of Multiscreen Corporation and eventually IMAX.
(Hem., 7/95, p.129)(Hem., 3/97, p.81)(AP, 4/27/97)
1967 Apr 27, Rocky Marciano
(1923-1969), American heavyweight champion, retired as the undefeated
boxing champ.
(http://tinyurl.com/nqhtzs)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Marciano)
1968 Apr 27, In the Netherlands
part of a group of Catholic radicals left their own party and formed
the Political Party of Radicals (PPR). The party dissolved in 1991.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Party_Radicals)
1969 Apr 27, Gen. Rene Barrientos
(b.1919), military president of Bolivia, died in a helicopter crash.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Barrientos_Ortu%C3%B1o)
1971 Apr 27, In South Korea Kim
Dae-jung, a serious challenger to Park's dictatorship, nearly defeated
Park in the presidential election. After the stunning election outcome,
Park revised the constitution to guarantee himself victory in future
elections.
(AP, 10/24/07)(http://tinyurl.com/569aqp)
1972 Apr 27, Apollo 16 returned to
Earth.
(www.solarviews.com/eng/apo16.htm)
1972 April 27, The German
opposition took advantage of the crumbling Bundestag majority of the
social-liberal coalition to bring a vote of no-confidence against Willy
Brandt. In a secret vote, Rainer Barzel failed to achieve the required
majority in the Bundestag and Willy Brandt remained Federal Chancellor.
(http://tinyurl.com/dgyyl)
1972 Apr 27, Kwame Nkrumah (62),
former president of Ghana, died in Romania of cancer.
(http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/19/150104.php)
1973 Apr 27, Acting FBI Director
L. Patrick Gray resigned after it was revealed that he had handed over
bureau files on the Watergate burglary to the Nixon White House.
(AP, 4/27/08)
1975 Apr 27, Saigon was encircled
by North Vietnamese troops. NVA fire rockets into downtown civilian
areas as the city erupts into chaos and widespread looting.
(HN,
4/27/99)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1976 Apr 27, Jimmy Carter clinched
the Democratic presidential nomination by beating Henry “Scoop” Jackson
and Morris Udall in the Pennsylvania primary.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/timeline/index.html)(Econ, 4/12/08, p.31)
1978 Apr 27, Convicted Watergate
defendant John D. Ehrlichman was released from an Arizona prison after
serving 18 months.
(AP, 4/27/97)
1978 Apr 27, In West Virginia 51
construction workers plunged to their deaths when a scaffold inside a
cooling tower at the nuclear Pleasants Power Station on Willow Island
fell 168 feet to the ground.
(AP,
4/27/98)(http://historicmonroe.org/corp/willow-island.htm)
1978 Apr 27, The Afghanistan
revolution began. There was a leftist coup. Afghanistan armed forces
seized power. Pres. Mohammed Daud Khan was killed and Nur Mohammad
Tarakai was installed as president. Babrak Karmal became his deputy
Prime Minister. It was the first country in South Asia to fall while
under communist rule. Assadulah Sarawary became the secret police chief
under the Tarakai regime. In 2006 he faced war crime charges. In 2008
Afghan authorities announced they had found mass graves containing the
remains of ex-president Mohammad Daud Khan and 17 family members and
associates. In 2009 Daud Khan was reburied along with family members on
a hillside overlooking the mountains that surround Kabul.
(HN, 4/27/98)(WSJ, 9/20/01, p.A12)(Econ, 1/21/06,
p.42)(AP, 8/17/08)(AP, 12/4/08)(AP, 3/17/09)
1982 Apr 27, The trial of John W.
Hinckley Jr., who had shot four people, including President Reagan,
began in Washington. The trial ended with Hinckley's acquittal by
reason of insanity.
(AP, 4/27/97)
1983 Apr 27, Nolan Ryan became the
strikeout king (3,509), passing Walter Johnson.
(www.astrosdaily.com/history/sound/f.html)
1983 Apr 27, SF Mayor Diane
Feinstein overwhelmingly defeated a recall attempt.
(SSFC, 4/27/08, DB p.58)
1983 Apr 27, In San Diego, Ca.,
Philip Buell, age 33 months, died from injuries of a fall while under
the care of Ken Marsh. In 1984 Marsh was convicted of murder. He was
freed in 2004, after spending 21 years in prison, before it was proven
that he had been wrongfully convicted. In 2005 state prosecutors ruled
that he should be compensated $756,000 for the time spent in prison.
(SFC, 12/10/05,
p.B2)(http://freekenmarsh.com/declarations.html)
1984 Apr 27, In Oregon Billy
Gilley Jr. (28) murdered his parents and a sister (11) with a baseball
bat and ran away with his other sister Jody (16). She soon contacted
the police and Billy was arrested. In 2008 Kathryn Harrison authored
“While They Slept: An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family.”
(SFC, 6/17/08, p.E3)
1986 Apr 27, A video pirate
calling himself “Captain Midnight” interrupted a movie on Home Box
Office with a printed message protesting de-scrambling fees. Captain
Midnight turned out to be John R. MacDougall of Florida, who was fined
and placed on probation.
(AP, 4/27/01)
1987 Apr 27, The US Justice
Department barred Austrian President Kurt Waldheim from entering the
US, saying he aided in the deportation and execution of thousands of
Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II.
(AP, 4/27/97)
1988 Apr 27, The US Senate
approved a sweeping trade bill, 63-36, falling short of the two-thirds
vote needed to override a threatened veto by President Reagan.
(AP, 4/27/98)
1989 Apr 27, In China more than
150,000 students and workers calling for democracy marched, cheered and
sang as they took over Tiananmen Square in central Beijing.
(HN, 4/27/98)(AP, 4/27/99)
1989 Apr 27, In South Africa Frans
"Ting-Ting" Masango (1958-2009), an anti-apartheid activist, was
sentenced to death following the historic "Delmas Four" trial. He was
released in 1991 after the ANC was unbanned. In 2008 Peter Harris
authored “In A Different Time, the Story of the Delmas Four.”
(www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=802399)(AP,
9/21/09)
1990 Apr 27, The aperture door of
the Hubble Space Telescope was opened by ground controllers as the
space shuttle Discovery, which had carried the Hubble into orbit,
prepared to return home.
(AP, 4/27/00)
1991 Apr 27, A group of 250 Kurds
became the first refugees to move into a new US-built camp in northern
Iraq.
(AP, 4/27/01)
1992 Apr 27, Olivier Messiaen
(b.1908), French composer, died. His work included the 1983 opera "St.
Francis d’Assise."
(WSJ, 10/3/02,
p.D6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Messiaen)
1992 Apr 27, The Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia was proclaimed in Belgrade by the Republic of Serbia and
its lone ally, Montenegro.
(AP, 4/27/97)
1992 Apr 27, Russia and 12 other
former Soviet republics won entry into the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank.
(AP, 4/27/97)
1993 Apr 27, After a hiatus of
more than four months, Israeli and Arab delegates resumed Middle East
peace talks in Washington, D.C.
(AP, 4/27/98)
1993 Apr 27, Eritrea declared
itself an independent state.
(www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/hornafrica.html#eri)
1994 Apr 27, Former President
Richard M. Nixon was remembered at an outdoor funeral service attended
by all five of his successors at the Nixon presidential library in
Yorba Linda, Calif.
(AP, 4/27/99)
1995 Apr 27, Former Orange County,
Calif., Treasurer Robert Citron pleaded guilty to six counts of
defrauding investors in the county investment pool.
(AP, 4/27/00)
1995 Apr 27, Willem Frederik
Hermans (b.1921), Dutch author, died. His 1966 novel “Beyond Sleep” was
considered to be one of the founding works of modern Dutch literature.
In 2007 an English translation became available.
(WSJ, 1/7/07,
p.P8)(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Frederik_Hermans)
1996 Apr 27, William Egan Colby
(76), CIA Director, disappeared while canoeing near his waterfront home
in southern Maryland. His body was found 8 days later. In 2003 John
Prados authored "Lost Crusador," a biography of Colby.
(WSJ, 6/5/03,
p.D8)(www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wcolby.htm)
1996 Apr 27, In Lebanon tens of
thousands of refugees streamed home to southern Lebanon after a
U.S.-brokered cease-fire silenced the guns in the 16-day
Israel-Hezbollah war. The World Bank, which had committed $300 million
to rebuilding Lebanon, will consider if more money is needed after the
Israeli blitz.
(SFC, 5/4/96, P.A-8)(AP, 4/27/97)
1996 Apr 27, The southern Iranian
town of Baft, 350 miles Southeast of Tehran, was invaded by
millions of cockroaches, locusts, and grasshoppers.
(SFC, 4/27/96, p.A-7)
1996 Apr 27, As many as 590
million voters will participate in elections for three days of
balloting held over nearly two weeks in India. It will determine the
pace of reforms and serve as a referendum on the recent corruption
scandals.
(WSJ, 4/16/96, p.A-1)
1997 Apr 27, President Clinton,
along with former presidents George Bush and Jimmy Carter, helped
polish gritty city streets in Philadelphia as they launched the Summit
for America's Future, a three-day gathering on community service.
(AP, 4/27/98)
1997 Apr 27, A Texas militia
group, called Republic of Texas, took 2 hostages at the Davis Mountain
Resort community in a standoff with 300 police officers. They advocated
independence for the state. The hostages were released later the next
day in exchange for a jailed comrade, but the standoff continued.
Richard McLaren and Robert Otto were later captured, convicted and
sentenced to 99 and 50 years in prison.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/27/98)
1997 Apr 27, In Hong Kong the
Tsing Ma Bridge that connects the mainland part of Hong Kong with the
islet of Chek Lap Kok was opened. It was hailed as the longest
road-and-rail suspension bridge in the world.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 27, In Mexico two federal
police agents, Roberto Espinoza and Marco Vasquez, were found shot dead
with signs of torture in Mexico city. They had been investigating Amado
Carrillo, Mexico’s most powerful drug lord.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A12)
1998 Apr 27, A Pentagon panel said
remains of the Vietnam veteran in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington
National Cemetery should be exhumed to determine whether they belonged
to Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie, as his family believed. The
remains were later positively identified as Blassie's.
(AP, 4/27/03)
1998 Apr 27, A Pentagon panel said
the remains of the Vietnam veteran in the Tomb of the Unknowns in
Arlington National Cemetery should be exhumed to determine whether they
belonged to Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie, as his family
believed. The remains were later positively identified as Blassie's.
(AP, 4/27/08)
1998 Apr 27, In Arlington,
Washington, a fire at a 90-year-old building, used as a home for the
elderly, killed 7 residents.
(SFC, 4/29/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 27, Carlos Castaneda
(72), author, died. His 1968 thesis: “The Teachings of Don Juan: A
Yaqui Way of Knowledge,” published by the Univ. of Calif. Press (1968),
became an int’l. best seller. In 1997 his ex-wife Margaret Runyan
Castaneda authored "A Magical Journey With Carlos Castaneda." In 2000
Richard DeMille authored "Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the
Allegory." In 2003 Amy Wallace, Castaneda's lover in the 1970s,
authored "The Sorcerer's Apprentice: My Life With Carlos Castaneda."
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.A2)(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.E2)
1998 Apr 27, The UN extended
security sanctions against Iraq but agreed to reviews every 60 days. It
was earlier reported that Iraq recently had executed 1,500 political
prisoners.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Apr 27, Afghanistan peace
talks between the Taliban and its opponents were scheduled to begin in
Pakistan.
(SFC, 4/18/98, p.A10)
1998 Apr 27, In Cuba Canada’s
Prime Minister Chretien urged Fidel Castro to release four leading
dissidents. It was reported that about 350 political prisoners were
currently held.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Apr 27, In Denmark some
550,000 workers walked of their jobs after unions turned down a
compromise contract. The unions called for a 6th week of paid vacation.
(SFC, 4/30/98, p.A10)
1998 Apr 27, In India the hunger
strike that began Mar 10 ended as police forced the Tibetan strikers to
be fed intravenously as Gen’l Fu Quanyou of China began talks with
Indian officials. One Tibetan exile set himself on fire and was not
expected to survive.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Apr 27, In Japan a court
ruled that the government must compensate 3 South Korean women forced
into sexual slavery during WW II, and awarded the women $2,300 each.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A8)
1998 Apr 27, In Kosovo the
Yugoslav army clashed with ethnic Albanians and 3 insurgents were
killed. Albanian reports said up to a dozen were slain and that none of
them were militants.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A8)
1998 Apr 27, From Venezuela it was
reported that Hugo Chavez, leader of the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR),
was campaigning for the office of president. He led a 1992 failed
coup and was jailed for 2 years.
(WSJ, 4/27/98, p.A16)
1999 Apr 27, A week after the
Columbine High School massacre, President Clinton called for new gun
control measures, saying, "People's lives are at stake here."
(AP, 4/27/00)
1999 Apr 27, The US Pentagon
announced a call for 33,102 reservists for active duty in Kosovo.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 27, A federal grand jury
indicted ten top political figures in Arkansas for corruption. Nick
Wilson, the senior state senator, was indicted as the ring leader of a
group that diverted state money.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 27, In Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush and the Legislature agreed on a plan to allow children in the
lowest-rated schools to use state vouchers for private schools.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 27, Al Hirt, "The King of
the Trumpet," died in New Orleans at age 76.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.C4)
1999 Apr 27, In Indonesia Pres.
Habibie announced plans for a ballot on independence on Aug 8.
Anti-independence militiamen rejected the plans.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.C2)
1999 Apr 27, A NATO bomb missed a
targeted army barracks and killed at 20 people, half of them children,
in a residential area of Surdulica, Serbia.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A10)(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A14)
1999 Apr 27, Up to 5,000 ethnic
Albanians entered Macedonia and many more were said to be following.
Another 2,000 entered at the Lojane border post.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A10)
1999 Apr 27, Near the
town of Meja Yugoslav troops executed over 100 men from a caravan of
fleeing refugees.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A14)
2000 Apr 27, New York City Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani disclosed that he had prostate cancer. He later bowed
out of the US Senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
(AP, 4/27/01)
2000 Apr 27, In Colombia a riot
broke out at Bogota’s El Modelo federal prison after an inmate’s
mutilated body was found in a sewer pipe. 26 people were killed over
the next 24 hours in fighting between paramilitary and common criminals.
(SFC, 4/29/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 27, Some 288 migrant
Haitians were rescued from Flamingo Cay in the Bermuda Islands after
their boat ran aground. 2-14 of the migrants died of exposure and
dehydration while awaiting rescue.
(SFC, 4/28/00, p.D4)(SFC, 4/29/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 27, In Iran Islamic
hard-liners closed 3 more newspapers, including the daily run by the
brother of Pres. Khatami.
(SFC, 4/28/00, p.A19)
2000 Apr 27, In Uganda workers in
Ggaba, a residential area south of Kampala, exhumed the bodies of 55
more people associated with the Movement for the Restoration of Ten
Commandments. Total deaths stood at 979.
(SFC, 4/28/00, p.D2)
2001 Apr 27, The US GDP was
reported at 2% growth due to buying by American consumers. The DJIA
rose 117 to 10,810. The Nasdaq rose 40 to 2,075.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 27, It was reported that
IBM scientists had assembled transistors using carbon nanotubules. The
structures were first discovered in 1991 by Sumio Iijima of NEC
Fundamental Research Labs in Tsukuba, Japan.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.B1,4)
2001 Apr 27, The US National Arbor
Day Foundation announced that the oak tree was nominated as the
national tree in its sponsored vote.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A9)
2001 Apr 27, Four students from
Newton, Mass., were killed near Sussex, New Brunswick, when their bus
crashed while enroute to a music festival in Halifax. At least 37
others were injured.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A10)
2001 Apr 27, In Nigeria 53 African
states signed a joint declaration to boost health spending to 15% to
fight AIDS.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A10)
2001 Apr 27, In Puerto Rico the US
Navy resumed bombing exercises on Vieques Island where 14 protesters
were arrested.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A3)(AP, 4/27/02)
2001 Apr 27, In Russia John Edward
Tobin (24), a US Fullbright scholar, was convicted of possession and
distribution of marijuana and sentenced to three years and one month in
prison. Police had acknowledged making up evidence. The prosecutor said
she was ashamed to handle the case. Tobin, who maintained his
innocence, was paroled and released last August.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A10)(AP, 4/27/02)
2002 Apr 27, Derek Lowe (news ) of
the Boston Red Sox pitched a no-hitter against the Tampa Bay Devil
Rays, 10-0.
(AP, 4/27/03)
2002 Apr 27, South African
entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth arrived at the international space
station for an eight-day, seven-night cruise that cost him $20 million.
(AP, 4/27/03)
2002 Apr 27, In Laughlin, Nev.,
members of the Hells Angels clashed with members of the Mongol gang and
3 people were killed in a shootout at Harrah’s. Some 80,000 bikers were
in town for the annual Laughlin River Run party. Investigations led to
arrests on Dec 3, 2003.
(SSFC, 4/28/02, p.A9)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A25)
2002 Apr 27, Ruth Handler (85),
co-founder of Mattel and creator of the Barbie doll (1959), died.
(SSFC, 4/28/02, p.A2)
2002 Apr 27, In Afghanistan 25
people were killed in Gardez from rockets fired by Padsha Khan Zadran
in a bid to take the provincial capital. The attack came just before
Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld landed at Bagram Air Base.
(SSFC, 4/28/02, p.A17)(WSJ, 4/29/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 27, China’s VP Hu Jintao
(59), heir apparent, stopped in Hawaii on his way to meet with Pres.
Bush.
(WSJ, 4/29/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 27, At least 200,000
protesters marched in cities around France in anger at the electoral
showing of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
(SSFC, 4/28/02, p.A12)
2002 Apr 27, A UN team scheduled
to arrive in Israel for an inspection at Jenin was postponed for a day
over differences in the teams objectives.
(SFC, 4/27/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 27, Palestinian gunmen
attacked the Israeli settlement of Adora and killed 4 people including
a 5-year-old girl. 3 gunmen escaped but one was later found and killed
in a nearby village.
(SSFC, 4/28/02, p.A1)
2003 Apr 27, Kevin Millwood
pitched his first career no-hitter to lead the Philadelphia Phillies
over the San Francisco Giants 1-0.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2003 Apr 27, Peter Stone (73),
screen and stage writer died in New York.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2003 Apr 27, In Argentina former
President Carlos Menem (72) finished first in presidential elections
but failed to win an outright victory in his comeback bid, setting up a
runoff vote with Nestor Kirchner, governor of Patagonia.
(AP, 4/28/03)(SFC, 4/28/03, A3)
2003 Apr 27, In China's central
Hunan province a wagon overturned and tumbled into a gully, killing 16
people and injuring seven others. In Beijing theaters, cafes and
karaoke bars were closed as 126 new SARS cases were reported. Total
confirmed cases in China rose to 2,914 with 131 deaths. 26 of China's
31 provinces were infected.
(AP, 4/27/03)(WSJ, 4/28/03, A1)(SFC, 4/28/03, A1)
2003 Apr 27, In Iraq Lt. Gen.
Hossam Mohammed Amin al-Yasin (6 of clubs), chief Iraqi liaison with UN
weapons inspectors, surrendered to US forces. The US military arrested
the self-anointed mayor of Baghdad, Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi,
reflecting US determination to brook no interlopers in its effort to
build a consensus for administering Iraq.
(AP, 4/28/03)(AP, 4/27/04)
2003 Apr 27, In Indonesia a bomb
ripped through a crowded terminal at Jakarta's main airport, wounding
11 people and sending hundreds of passengers fleeing from the building.
(AP, 4/27/03)
2003 Apr 27, In Paraguay elections
were held for a successor to Pres. Luis Gonzalez Macchi, a former
Senate leader appointed president in March 1999 after the resignation
of Raul Cubas amid a political crisis stemming from the assassination
of the country's vice president. Colorado Party leader Nicanor Duarte
(49) extended his party's 55-year grip on power, winning a presidential
election by handily defeating two challengers seeking to tap building
anger over the country's deepening economic crisis.
(AP, 4/26/03)(AP, 4/28/03)(SFC, 4/28/03, A12)
2003 Apr 27, In Yemen
parliamentary elections for 301 seats were marred by gunfights that
wounded at least 15 people.
(SFC, 4/28/03, A12)
2004 Apr 27, Republican Sen. Arlen
Specter, of Pennsylvania, beat back a tough primary threat, barely
defeating conservative congressman Pat Toomey.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2004 Apr 27, The Chinese
government said it had shut down a U.S. visa information center in
Shanghai because of complaints of overcharging.
(AP, 4/28/04)
2004 Apr 27, It was reported that
China planned to consolidate some 35,000 rural cooperatives over the
next 3 years to about 3,000. The government estimated cooperative bad
loans at 26% of the total loans.
(WSJ, 4/27/04, p.A16)
2004 Apr 27, In Indonesia gunmen
in Ambon killed two paramilitary police officers and critically wounded
a third and a Muslim man later was incinerated by a bomb explosion,
bringing the death toll since Sunday to 24.
(AP, 4/28/04)
2004 Apr 27, It was reported that
10 US contractors in Iraq have paid over $300 million in penalties
since 2000 to resolved various allegations.
(SFC, 4/27/04, p.C1)
2004 Apr 27, US troops fought
gunbattles with militiamen overnight near the city of Najaf, killing 64
gunmen and destroying an anti-aircraft system belonging to the
insurgents.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2004 Apr 27, Iraqi police moved
into the streets of the besieged city of Fallujah following hours of
pounding by US warplanes and artillery on Sunni insurgents.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2004 Apr 27, Israeli troops killed
two Hamas fugitives and seriously wounded a third in a gun battle in
the West Bank Tulkarem refugee camp.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2004 Apr 27, Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi arrived in Brussels, his first trip to Europe in 15 years.
Gadhafi sought "full normalization" of relations and entry to the aid
and trade program the EU runs with countries around the Mediterranean,
including Israel.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2004 Apr 27, Peruvian police
retook control of an Andean town, a day after highland Indians beat to
death the mayor, accusing him of corruption.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2004 Apr 27, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov and EU officials signed an accord extending the
EU-Russia partnership accord to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta,
which join May 1.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2004 Apr 27, In Damascus 4 gunmen
detonated a bomb placed under a car before firing bullets and grenades
at Syrian security forces. Hours later police found weapons including
rocket propelled grenades and guns during the raid in the nearby town
of Khan al-Sheih.
(AP, 4/28/04)
2005 Apr 27, Touting technology as
a way to solve the country's energy problems, President Bush called for
construction of more nuclear power plants and urged Congress to give
tax breaks for fuel-efficient hybrid and clean-diesel cars.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2005 Apr 27, The Airbus A380, the
world's largest jetliner, made its maiden flight.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2005 Apr 27, Abdus Samad Azad
(83), a former foreign minister and Bangladeshi independence hero, died
in Dhaka.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 27, The Dominican
Republic education secretary said all public elementary and secondary
schools will institute mandatory English classes by the next school
year.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, Hundreds of
pro-democracy activists protested in 15 Egyptian cities and towns,
drawing out large numbers of riot police who briefly detained 75
protesters.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, The world's largest
passenger plane, the Airbus A380, completed a maiden flight in France
that took it over the Pyrenees mountains.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, Police fired on
protesters demanding the release of detainees loyal to Haiti's ousted
president, killing at least five demonstrators.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, Indian troops killed
nine suspected Islamic militants in three separate clashes in
Indian-controlled Kashmir.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, Lamia Abed Khadouri
al-Sagri, a member of the National Assembly and of outgoing premier
Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List party, was killed in her house in the Hay Aour
neighborhood in eastern Baghdad.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, Vladimir Putin became
the first Kremlin leader to visit Israel, capping a historic
rapprochement between two nations that once faced each other as bitter
enemies across the Cold War divide.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, In northwestern Sri
Lanka an intercity passenger train collided with a bus that tried to
dash through a railroad crossing, killing 35 people.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, A UN tribunal in
Tanzania sentenced Mika Muhimana, a former local government official in
western Rwanda, to imprisonment for the rest of his life for shooting
to death and raping mostly Tutsi victims during the 1994 genocide.
(AP, 4/28/05)
2005 Apr 27, Opposition supporters
protesting the presidential election victory by the son of Togo's
longtime dictator threw Molotov cocktails and rocks during street
clashes with security forces in the capital, leaving at least six
people dead and some foreign embassies damaged.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2006 Apr 27, The Bush
administration announced that it had reached a tentative agreement with
Canada to settle the long-running trade battle over softwood lumber.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Alberto Gonzales, the
US Attorney General, said police nationwide had arrested 9,037 people
in a roundup of fugitives from April 17 to 23, including over 1,100 sex
offenders.
(WSJ, 4/28/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 27, The US states joined
by environmentalists sued the federal government to compel it to
regulate carbon-dioxide emissions blamed for global warming.
(WSJ, 4/28/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 27, The publisher of the
teen novel “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life” pulled
the book off the market after its author, Harvard student Kaavya
Viswanathan acknowledged that numerous passages had been lifted from
another writer.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2006 Apr 27, In NYC construction
began at the site of the World Trade Center on a project to build 5
towers by 2012.
(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 27, A fiery crash in the
San Francisco’s Castro District killed one person and left at least 8
vehicle gutted.
(SFC, 4/28/06, p.B1)
2006 Apr 27, Austria, in its role
as current president of the EU, began a poster campaign called
"Temptress Europe" designed to reawaken Europeans to the continent's
"sensuous" side.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 27, Thousands of
Bulgarians demonstrated against a deal to allow US troops to use
military facilities in the country.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Canadian and US
scientists reported success with an experimental vaccine against the
Marburg virus in monkeys, even if the shot is given after infection.
(SFC, 4/27/06, p.A7)
2006 Apr 27, China's central bank
raised interest rates by .27% in the government's strongest move yet to
cool an economy verging on overheating. The news sent resource stocks,
oil and commodity prices lower around the world.
(AP, 4/27/06)(Econ, 4/29/06, p.43)
2006 Apr 27, Liliana Gaviria (52),
sister of the former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria (1990-1994),
died in a botched kidnapping in the province of Risaralda, 110 miles
west of Bogota. She was real estate agent and owner of a transport
company. On Feb 26, 2010, Beatriz Villalba (25) was arrested after
being under observation for four months. She had been conducting spying
operations for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in Bogota.
Prosecutors alleged that Villalba was in charge of buying a building
and modifying a vehicle used in the abduction and transportation of
Liliana Gaviria Trujillo. Gaviria's bodyguard was shot dead during the
kidnapping in Pereira.
(AP, 4/28/06)(AP, 2/26/10)
2006 Apr 27, Indian student
doctors staged a one-day strike at state-run hospitals in New Delhi to
protest government plans to boost quotas for the poor in top education
institutes.
(AFP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Iran's UN ambassador
denounced Israel's election as a vice-chair of the U.N. Disarmament
Commission, calling the Jewish state a threat to peace in the Middle
East.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 27, A sister of Iraq's
new Sunni Arab vice president was killed in a drive-by shooting in
Baghdad, a day after the politician called for the Sunni-dominated
insurgency to be crushed by force. In southern Iraq a bomb blast rocked
an Italian convoy at a base, killing three Italian soldiers and a
Romanian.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Israel's military
intelligence chief said in a published interview that Iran has received
its first batch of North Korean-made surface-to-surface missiles that
put European countries within firing range.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Israeli aircraft
fired missiles at two cars in Gaza packed with rockets, killing one
Islamic Jihad militant and critically wounding another.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 26, Malaysia’s central
bank raised its main interest rate by a quarter point to 3.5%.
(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 27, Reports from Myanmar
and Thailand said Myanmar troops were waging their biggest military
offensive in almost a decade and have uprooted more than 11,000 ethnic
minority civilians in a campaign punctuated by torture, killings and
the burning of villages.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Nepal's communist
rebels pledged to halt attacks for three months to give the Himalayan
country a chance for peace as a new government takes over in the wake
of bloody protests that forced the king to reinstate parliament.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, A Dutch agency said
the number of reported cases of legal euthanasia and doctor-assisted
suicide in the Netherlands increased in 2005 for the third year in a
row. Doctors reported 1,933 cases in 2005, up from 1,886 in 2004 and
1,815 in 2003.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, In Nigeria President
Hu Jintao said China wants a "strategic partnership" with Africa,
seeking to add a new political dimension to a blossoming economic
romance. China agreed to commit $4 billion for infrastructure in
exchange for 4 oil drilling licenses.
(Reuters, 4/27/06)(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 27, Russia’s Agriculture
Ministry said it has banned all imports of poultry and poultry products
in connection with violations of veterinary regulations. Moscow claimed
to have found diseased chickens and insufficient veterinary monitoring
on US poultry farms, but there were also Russia media reports linking
the ban to the country's unhappiness over US President George W. Bush's
decision to impose hefty tariffs on foreign steel imports.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, In South Korea state
prosecutors requested an arrest warrant for Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman
Chung Mong-koo amid a bribery and slush fund scandal that has rocked
the large automaker.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, In Sri Lanka rebels
said some 40,000 civilians fled homes in northeastern Sri Lanka to
escape government airstrikes on Tamil rebel areas in recent days that
have killed at least a dozen people. In northern Sri Lanka mine attacks
killed five military personnel and wounded another five. Police found
five headless corpses near Colombo.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Turkey said it has
deployed more than 30,000 additional troops in its predominantly
Kurdish southeast and along its rugged border with Iraq and Iran to
fight Kurdish guerrillas and stop them from coming across the frontier.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, The UN panel
overseeing compensation for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait
said the UN has paid out a $248 million installment to cover claims for
losses and damages.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2007 Apr 27, President Bush and
visiting Japanese PM Shinzo Abe threatened stronger punitive actions
against North Korea if it reneged on a promise to padlock its sole
nuclear reactor.
(AP, 4/27/08)
2007 Apr 27, The US dollar slid to
a record low against the euro. The worst economic growth in four years
raised concern that troubles in the US housing market will spread and
throw the country into a recession before the year is out.
(Reuters, 4/28/07)(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Randall Tobias, head
of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, abruptly resigned
after his name surfaced in an investigation into a high-priced
call-girl ring.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 27, The Pentagon said it
had taken custody of Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, a senior al-Qaeda commander.
Officials said al-Iraqi was handed over to the CIA in late 2006.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 27, The Ninth Circuit
federal appeals court rebuffed a Bush administration effort to relax
dolphin-safe labeling standards.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 27, The DJIA rose 15.44
to a record 13,120.94. Nasdaq rose 2.75 to 2,557.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.C1)
2007 Apr 27, In Santa Cruz, Ca.,
Steven Harold Smith (50),a supervisor at a wastewater treatment plant,
wounded his estranged wife, shot and killed a co-worker and then killed
himself.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.B2)
2007 Apr 27, Hundreds of Afghan
soldiers and police retook the Giro district from the Taliban, pushing
out militants who had seized the area in fierce fighting a day earlier.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, China’s Premier Wen
Jiabao pledged to phase out tax breaks and discounts on land and
electricity for highly polluting industries, saying the country's
environmental situation was grim and required urgent action.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, China said it has
expelled five Americans who staged a protest against the Olympics on
Mount Everest to challenge Chinese rule over the mountainous region.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Estonia removed a
Soviet war memorial from downtown Tallinn under cover of darkness,
carrying out a plan that has rankled Russia and provoked protests that
left one person dead and dozens injured.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, US-led forces
detained nine suspected insurgents in raids aimed at al-Qaida in Iraq,
including five in Mosul that has seen a recent rise in violence as
militants fled there to escape a crackdown in Baghdad.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Former Italian prime
minister Silvio Berlusconi was cleared in a high-profile corruption
case involving bribing judges.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Japan's Supreme Court
upheld a ruling denying compensation to two Chinese women who were
forced to work in military brothels during World War II. The court said
that the women had no right to seek war compensation from Japan because
of a 1972 agreement with China. The top court also overturned a lower
court ruling awarding compensation to five Chinese who were forced to
work for a Japanese construction company during the war.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, The UN Security
Council lifted its embargo on Liberia's diamond exports, saying the
west African nation has made progress in certifying the origin of its
rough diamonds. A multi-day strike at the Firestone Rubber plantation
in Liberia turned violent as police clashed with striking workers,
leaving at least six people wounded.
(AFP, 4/27/07)(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Nigeria's Supreme
Court voided the removal of Joshua Dariye, a Plateau state governor,
who fled London on money laundering charges in November 2004. In
Nigeria police said 5 gunmen and two police officers were killed during
an attempt to kidnap two foreign oil workers in the oil-rich city of
Port Harcourt.
(AFP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, An apparent US
missile strike killed 4 people in Saidgi, a village in the North
Waziristan of Pakistan near the Afghan border.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269012,00.html)
2007 Apr 27, A Russian military
helicopter crashed in Chechnya, killing all 18 people aboard, emergency
officials said. There were conflicting reports about whether the craft
was shot down.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Mstislav Rostropovich
(b.1927), master cellist, died. He had fought for the rights of
Soviet-era dissidents and later triumphantly played Bach suites below
the crumbling Berlin Wall.
(AP, 4/27/07)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.92)
2007 Apr 27, Saudi Arabia’s
Interior Ministry said police had arrested 172 Islamic militants, some
of whom had trained abroad as pilots so they could fly aircraft in
attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil fields. A spokesman said all that
remained in the plot "was to set the zero hour." More than $32.4
million was seized in the operation, one of the largest sweeps against
terror cells in the kingdoms.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, A Spanish judge
indicted three US soldiers in the 2003 death of Jose Couso, a Spanish
journalist who was killed when their tank opened fire at a hotel in
Baghdad.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2008 Apr 27, It was made public
that Mars Inc. of McLean, Va., together with Berkshire Hathaway had
agreed to acquire Wrigley Co. of Chicago, Ill., for about $23 billion.
The deal closed on Oct 6.
(WSJ, 4/29/08, p.A1)(SFC, 10/7/08, p.D2)
2008 Apr 27, In Arizona a truck
jammed with as many as 60 illegal immigrants crashed near Arizona City
killing 4 people.
(SFC, 4/28/08, p.A3)
2008 Apr 27, In San Ramon, Ca.,
Kashmir Billon (42), a mortgage lender, was shot and killed. On May 1
Reginald Robinson (31) was charged with the murder. They were involved
in a deal to sell a home to a fictitious person and leave a bank
holding the bag.
(SFC, 5/2/08, p.B1)(SFC, 5/8/08, p.B1)
2008 Apr 27, Hal Stein, veteran
jazz saxophonist and teacher, died at his home in Oakland, Ca. His
career spanned the swing and bebop eras of jazz.
(SFC, 5/6/08, p.B5)
2008 Apr 27, Suspected Taliban
militants attacked the Mujahideen Day parade attended by the Afghan
president, unleashing automatic weapons fire that sent foreign
dignitaries and senior members of the government fleeing for cover. 3
people, including a lawmaker, were killed and 8 were wounded. Pres.
Karzai later appeared on television saying several suspects in the
attack had been arrested. The Afghan government later accused the
Pakistani intelligence service of organizing the plot to assassinate
Pres. Karzai. Taliban militants attacked an Australian patrol with
automatic rifles and rocket propelled grenades in southern Afghanistan,
and the ensuing battle left one of the commandos dead and four others
wounded.
(AP, 4/27/08)(Econ, 5/3/08, p.50)(SFC, 6/26/08,
p.A10)
2008 Apr 27, President Rene Preval
chose Ericq Pierre, an international banking official, to be the
troubled country's next prime minister.
(AP, 4/27/08)
2008 Apr 27, Iraq's PM al-Maliki
met with the Sunni Arab vice president to discuss reintegrating Sunni
political parties into the Shiite-dominated government. Police said
five people died in violence in Baghdad. Elsewhere in Baghdad, a
suicide car bomber blew himself up at a security checkpoint in the
eastern neighborhood of Zayouna killing three people and injuring nine.
Shiite extremists lobbed rockets or mortar shells at the US protected
Green Zone as American and Iraqi troops engaged militants in the most
violent clashes in weeks in Baghdad. Abrams tanks were used to repel
attacks on two army checkpoints, killing 22 militants in one clash. 16
other militants were killed in separate firefights. A US military
statement said an unmanned drone had killed a total of five militants
using Hellfire missiles in three separate engagements.
(AP, 4/27/08)(AP, 4/28/08)
2008 Apr 27, A summit aimed at
kick-starting Maghreb economic integration was disrupted when Moroccan
and Algerian government ministers clashed over the disputed Western
Sahara region.
(AFP, 4/28/08)
2008 Apr 27, Hundreds of workers
at Scotland's only oil refinery began a 48-hour strike. This forced BP
PLC to shut a pipeline system that delivers almost a third of Britain's
North Sea oil.
(AP, 4/27/08)
2008 Apr 27, A North Korean
defector tried to set himself on fire to halt the Olympic torch relay
through Seoul, while thousands of police guarded the flame from
protesters blasting China's treatment of North Korean refugees. A North
Korean soldier defected to South Korea for the first time in a decade
across the heavily fortified border dividing the countries.
(AP, 4/27/08)(AP, 4/28/08)
2008 Apr 27, In Sri Lanka Tiger
rebels used aircraft to bomb military targets, dealing a psychological
blow to security forces, as the two sides fought heavy ground battles.
(AFP, 4/27/08)
2008 Apr 27, In Sudan China’s
state-owned China Water and Electric Corp (CWE) and Sino-Hydro signed a
400-million dollar (255-million euro) deal to raise the height of
Sudan's oldest dam, in the southern Blue Nile state.
(AFP, 4/27/08)
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