Find More Details for What happened 27th May This Day in History on your birthday
1936 : The Cunard liner RMS Queen Mary leaves Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York with more than 1800 passengers.
1941 : The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the Atlantic by the Royal Naval ships Dorsetshire, King George V and Rodney after it had been damaged by torpedoes dropped by British aircraft from HMS Ark Royal.
1923 : The first Le Mans 24-Hour race ends with a win for Andre Lagache and Renee Leonard covering 1,372.928 miles in a Chenard-Walker car. The latest race run in 2007 is won by Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro and Marco Werner covering 3129.75 miles in an Audi R10.
1937 : Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County, California is opened to pedestrian traffic and more than 200,000 pedestrians walked across on opening day. The next day the Golden Gate Bridge is opened to vehicular traffic.
The different in price between this Hudson and the Ford Model T is similar in the difference between buying a Ford Focus and a Ferrari new today, I have seen one very similar at a collectors show and it does look quite spectacular for it's day.
1922 : The increasing use of checks has led to a larger number of arrests by the police for people issuing fraudulent checks and banks have decided to try and halt this problem by only issuing checks for customers who are upstanding citizens.
1943 : The Ballpoint pen, is patented in America by Hungarian Laszlo Biro.
1950 : Frank Sinatra made his TV debut on NBC's "Star-Spangled Review." He went on to be one of the most successful and recognizable figures in music history.
1955 : The British General Election is won by the Tories under Sir Anthony Eden.
1963 : The Kenya African Nation Union, wins the country's first general election and the leader of the party Jomo Kenyatta will become Kenya's first premier.
1964 : Jawaharlal Nehru the founder of modern India and prime minister, dies at the age of 74.
1971 : Walls of Lava are threatening two towns in Sicily as they continue towards the towns of Sciara and Giarre. This is the 54th day Mount Etna has been erupting and many experts are predicting a further major eruption due to the increased lava flow and smoke.
1989 : S&H Green stamps have been part of the retail landscape for over 50 years but the loss of it's largest customer Publix Supermarkets in Florida could well be the final nail in it's coffin this week. S&H Green Stamps has been in existence for 94 years and it's heyday in the 1960's when it was an important part of the retailing industry and very few people did not collect the Green Stamps to trade back for toasters and other gadgets is now passed due to many things ranging from the increase in discount coupons to the change in work patterns including more women working.
Celebrating Birthdays Today
Henry Kissinger
Born: May 27th, 1923, Fürth, Germany
Known For : Henry Kissinger came to the United States in 1938, and became a U.S. citizen in 1943. He served in the Army between 1943 and 1946, and graduated from Harvard in 1950. He went on to gain a masters in 1952 and a doctorate in 1954. He had been a member of Harvard's faculty from 1954 to 1969 when he was made Richard Nixon's Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. He continued in this role, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. He was appointed the U.S. Secretary of State in 1973, and served in that position until 1977.
Celebrating Birthdays Today
Andre 3000
Born: May 27th, 1975 Atlanta, Georgia
Known For : One half of the famous hip hop duo Outkast, Andre 3000 (born Andre Lauren Benjamin), began his music career in the 1990s. He and Big Boi (Antwan Andre Patton) formed the hip hop group Outkast in 1992 and released their debut album in 1994. Andre 3000 had continued success with Outkast, becoming one of the most well-regarded rappers of the 1990s and 2000s and has won 7 Grammys. In 2007, the group went on hiatus to pursue individual endeavors. He began an acting career appearing in such films as Be Cool, Semi-Pro, and Four Brothers. He is also well-known for his activism regarding animal rights.
1994 : After 20 years of exile in the United States the dissident Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn returns to his native Russia.
1995 : Actor Christopher Reeve best known for his Superman Movies is paralyzed when thrown from his horse during a jumping event in Charlottesville, Virginia.
1996 : 2 years after the large scale massacre of Tutsis in Rwanda the problems in Rwanda are flaring up again and this time with the Tutsis in power it is them who committing the slaughter on the Hutus. The peace in Rwanda is fragile and now with the minority Tutsis in power and exacting revenge this could again turn into a civil war where the innocents from both sides will be those losing their lives. The United Nations is hoping a larger force of peacekeepers will help but when a country is on a cycle of destruction of its own people this becomes a tall order.
1997 : An F5 tornado (winds Greater Than 260 MPH) and almost 800 feet wide strikes Jarrell, Texas, destroying the town and killing 27 people.
1999 : The Hague war crimes tribunal indicted Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity and genocide holding the Yugoslav president personally responsible for the horrors in Kosovo.
2000 : Scottish farmers who accidentally planted Advanta genetically modified Rapeseed have been advised by MAFF to dig up the crop as under EU rules, the GM crops produced from the seed cannot be marketed within Europe. They are now seeking compensation from Advanta who have apologized for providing GM contaminated seed.
2005 : A suicide bomber attacked the Bari Imam shrine created a blast that killed over eighteen people and injuring another fifty. There were hundreds of Shia Muslims at the shrine outside of Islamabad celebrating the end of a festival.
2006 : A 6.3-magnitude earthquake in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, killed at least 5,800 people, and leaves an estimated 1.5 million homeless.
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2008 : Following the May 12 Earthquake a new series of aftershocks measured as high as magnitude 5.7 have struck the area once again destroying an additional 420,000 homes. The official death toll from the original quake in Sichuan province is 67,183 with a further 20,000 still missing. Even before these new aftershocks latest estimates are that more than five million people are homeless since the earthquake.
2008 : Famous director and producer Sydney Pollack died at the age of seventy-three from cancer. The Oscar-winning director died surrounded by family only ten months after being diagnosed with cancer. He had directed such films as Out of Africa, Tootsie, and The Firm.
2009 : Famous boxer Mike Tyson's four-year-old daughter died after an accident at home. His daughter, Exodus, had been found with a treadmill cable wrapped around her throat a few days prior to her death and was in the hospital on life support. Tyson was in Las Vegas when the accident happened but came home when he heard news of it.
2011 : Sixty-year old actor, Jeff Conway, died after his family made the decision to take him off of life support after being in an induced coma for many days. Conway was famous for playing Kenickie in the movie musical Grease, as well as starring in the television show Taxi. Conway had struggled with alcohol and drug addiction throughout his life which he claimed began after he incurred a back injury while filming Grease.
2012 : Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the government in Casablanca, Morocco. The demonstrators were angry that Prime Minister Benkirane had failed to deliver reforms after a new government was put into office in January.
2013 : The town of Clinceni in Romania has claimed the Guinness World Record for largest flag ever made. The flag measured 1,145 feet by 744 feet and weighed five tons, taking up seven acres of field. It was estimated that forty-four miles of thread was needed to complete the project.