Today in History March 27

196 BC – Ptolemy V ascends to the throne of Egypt

1513 – Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon discovers Florida

1625 – Charles I, King Of England, Scotland and Ireland, ascends English throne

1668 – English king Charles II gives Bombay to East India Company

1790 – The modern shoestring (string and shoe holes) invented in England. An aglet  (the Latin word for “needle.”) is the small plastic or fiber tube that binds the end of a shoelace (or similar cord) to prevent fraying and to allow the lace to be passed through an eyelet or other opening. Before shoestrings, shoes were commonly fastened with buckles.

1794 – US Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.

1841 – First US steam fire engine tested in New York City

1855 – Abraham Gesner patents kerosene

1863 – President Davis calls for this to be a day of fasting and prayer

	Chaplin as Hitler

1931 – Charlie Chaplin receives France’s distinguished Legion of Honor

1933 – Japan leaves League of Nations

1941 – Hitler signs Directive 27(Assault on Yugoslavia)

1945 – Iwo Jima occupied, after 22,000 Japanese and 6,000 US killed

1952 – Failed assassination attempt of German Chancellor Adenauer

1958 – Havana Hilton opens

1958 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party

1964 – Earthquake strikes Alaska, 8.4 on Richter scale, 118 die

1966 – Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in US, Europe and Australia

1973 – 45th Academy Awards – “Godfather“, Marlon Brando turns down Oscar for best actor in support of American Indians

1977 – 583 die in aviation’s worst disaster KLM-Pan Am 747 crash on the Canary Islands

972 – King Robert II of France (d. 1031)

1712 – Claude Bourgelat, French veterinary surgeon (d. 1779) Born in Lyon, he left the bar to devote his efforts to find a remedy of a plague that was affecting France’s cattle  herds in the late 1700s. He was the founder of a veterinary school in Lyon around 1761. It was cattle plague, known by its German name, Rinderpest.

1809 – Georges Eugene Haussmann, Paris France. Chosen by Napolean III he was responsible for creating the new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris

1813 – Nathaniel Currier, lithographer (Currier & Ives)

1845 – Wilhelm Rontgen, Lennep, Rhine Province, discovered X-rays for which he received the Nobel in 1901

1863 – Henry Royce, automobile founder (Rolls-Royce)

1879 – Edward Steichen, pioneer in American photography. He had a three-legged dog named Tripod.

1886 – Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

1924 – Sarah L Vaughan, Newark NJ, jazz singer

1952 – Maria Schneider, Paris, actress who stared with Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris

1963 – Quentin Tarantino, director (Pulp Fiction)

1625 – James I Stuart, king of Scotland, dies at 58

	One of Dr. Porsche’s designs

1850 – Wilhelm Bear, German banker/astronomer (Moon Map), dies at 53

1968 – Yuri Gagarin, First man to orbit Earth dies in a test plane crash at age 34

1972 – Maurits C Escher, Dutch lithograph carver (Praedestinatie), dies at 73

1998 – Ferry Porsche, Austrian automobile manufacturer (b. 1909) Created among other masterpieces the Porsche 356 and 911

2006 – Lyn Nofziger, American journalist and political advisor to Ronald Reagan (b. 1924)

2012 – Hilton Kramer, American art critic, dies from heart failure at 84