This Year in History:
1927
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On January 7, 1927, the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team travels 48 miles west from Chicago to play their first game in Hinckley, Illinois. The Globetrotters were the creation of Abe…
On January 11, 1927, Charlie Chaplin’s $16 million estate is frozen by court receivers after his second wife, Lita Grey Chaplin, sues for divorce. The bitter and prolonged divorce ended…
On this day in 1927, Confederate General John A. McCausland dies at age 90 inWest Virginia. He lived for over 50 years after the war and remained an unreconstructed Rebel…
Uncompromising environmentalist and author Edward Abbey is born in Home, Pennsylvania. A self‑proclaimed “enemy of the modern military‑industrial state,” which he believed was destroying the natural world and human freedom,…
On this day in 1927, humorist Erma Bombeck (maiden name, Erma Fiste)is born in Dayton, Ohio. Bombeck studied English at Ohio University and the University of Dayton and worked part…
Robert Kearns, who patented a design for a type of windshield wiper and later won multi‑million dollar judgments against Chrysler and Ford for using his concept without permission, is born…
At 7:52 a.m., American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, on the world’s first solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean and…
American pilot Charles A. Lindbergh lands at Le Bourget Field in Paris, successfully completing the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight and the first ever nonstop flight between New York to…
On this day in 1927, Robert Ludlum, the author of more than 20 thrillers, including the Jason Bourne spy novels, is born in New York City. Ludlum, who published his…
On May 26, 1927, Henry Ford and his son Edsel drive the 15 millionth Model T Ford out of their factory, marking the famous automobile’s official last day of production.…
On this day in 1927, the Kentucky River peaks during a massive flood that kills 89 people and leaves thousands homeless. Torrential rains caused this unprecedented flood. An account from…
The Sioux County Pioneer newspaper of North Dakota reports on this day in 1927 that President Calvin Coolidge will be “adopted” into a Sioux tribe at Fort Yates on the…
On this day in 1927, Neil Simon, the author of a long list of successful Broadway plays–many of which, including The Odd Couple, became hit movies–is born in the Bronx…
The Father of Country Music, Jimmie Rodgers, is recorded for the very first time on August 4, 1997, during the legendary Bristol Sessions. The term “country music” did not exist…
Despite worldwide demonstrations in support of their innocence, Italian‑born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for murder on August 23, 1927. On April 15, 1920, a paymaster for…
On September 14, 1927, dancer Isadora Duncan is strangled in Nice, France, when the enormous silk scarf she is wearing gets tangled in the rear hubcaps of her open car.…
Jack Dempsey, the “Manassa Mauler,” misses an opportunity to regain the heavyweight boxing title when he fails to return to a neutral corner after knocking down champ Gene Tunney in…
On September 22, 1927, heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney, with help from a controversial long count, defeats former champ Jack Dempsey at Soldier Field in Chicago. A year earlier, on…
On September 30, 1927, Babe Ruth hits his 60th home run of the 1927 season and with it sets a record that would stand for 34 years. George Herman Ruth…
On October 4, 1927, sculpting begins on the face of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota. It would take another 12 years for the granite…
