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“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
“Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.”
“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”
~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Wikiquote (Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860) was a German philosopher best known for his book, The World as Will and Representation, in which he claimed that our world is driven by a continually dissatisfied will, continually seeking satisfaction.)
May 27th, 927
Battle of the Bosnian Highlands: The Croatian army, led by King Tomislav , defeats the Bulgarian Army.
Wikipedia Photo: Branimir of Croatia - Croatia ● The Walls of Dubrovnik ● Karst in National Park Sjeverni Velebit ● Makarska, Split-Dalmatia County.
May 27th, 1199
King John is crowned King of England.
Wikipedia Photo: Elias of Dereham, a steward to the Archbishop Stephen Langton with King John of England entrusted with delivering 10 of 13 copies of the Magna Carta. (The Magna Carta was the first document forced onto a King of England by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges.)
May 27th, 1703
Tsar Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great) founds the city of Saint Petersburg.
Wikipedia Painting: Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great)
Image: Saint Petersburg: Panorama from Palace Bridge;
Pushkin House is established in Saint Petersburg to preserve the cultural heritage (Institute of Russian Literature, as seen from across the Neva);
Saint Petersburg, Russia. © Digital Vision / Getty Images;
Saint Isaac's Cathedral;
Winter Palace is one of the most splendid buildings in Saint Petersburg.
Wikipedia Painting: Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great)
May 27th, 1799
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1799 - War of the Second Coalition; Battle of Winterthur (1799) - Austrian forces defeat the French at Winterthur, Switzerland, securing control of the northeastern Swiss Plateau because of the town's location at the junction of seven cross-roads.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar;
Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806;
Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet;
Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani);
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo;
Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807;
Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars;
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen;
Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford;
Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).
May 27th, 1813
War of 1812:
1813 - In Canada, American forces capture Fort George.
Wikipedia Painting: Damage to the US Capitol after the Burning of Washington; HMS Shannon leading the captured American frigate USS Chesapeake into Halifax, Nova Scotia (1813); USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere; the death of Tecumseh at Moraviantown; Oliver Hazard Perry's message to William Henry Harrison after the Battle of Lake Erie began with what would become one of the most famous sentences in American military history: "We have met the enemy and they are ours; "Andrew Jackson leads the defence of New Orleans; The mortally wounded Isaac Brock spurs troops on at the Queenston Heights.
May 27th, 1860
Kingdom of Italy: (1861–1946) Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian Unification.
Wikipedia Image: Territories and colonies of the Kingdom of Italy in 1941. ● Kingdom of Italy (green) ● Italian colonies and possessions (light green) ● Italian occupied territory and protectorates (dark grey). ● Western Europe in a Satellite Image, NASA.
May 27th, 1863
American Civil War:
1863 - Siege of Port Hudson; First Assault on the Confederate works.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● First Battle Between Ironclads: CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.
May 27th, 1896
Tornadoes:
1896 - Saint Louis-East Saint Louis Tornado; A F4 tornado hits Saint Louis, Missouri and East Saint Louis, Illinois killing at least 255 people.
1997 - Central Texas tornado outbreak; Jarrell, Texas killing 25 people.
Wikipedia Photo: Weather Front System; Tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma; North Dakota Tornado; F3 Category Tornado Swirls Across A South Dakota Prairie by Carsten Peter; A waterspout parallels a lightning strike over Lake Okeechobee in Florida, by Fred K. Smith, National Geographics, Extream Instability.
May 27th, 1905
Russo-Japanese War:
1905 - Battle of Tsushima: begins.
Wikipedia Image: Battle of Tsushima ends with the destruction of the Russian Baltic Fleet ● Cossacks capture Japanese detachment and their commander ● Aftermath of Mukden: the Russians defeated ● Photographing Russians on the move in Manchuria ● Cossacks protect the Telegraph lines ● Battle of Mukden with piles of Japanese dead at the Ramparts, credit Andrewn.tripod.
May 27th, 1907
Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco, California.
Wikipedia Painting: Plague Physician in the William Shakespeare Era / Bubonic Plague, ”Ring around the rosy”
May 27th, 1927
Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Model A.
Wikipedia Photo: Ford Model T-100 / Assembly line for the Ford Model T
May 27th, 1930
The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public.
Wikipedia Photo: Chrysler Building in New York City by Night
May 27th, 1933
Great Depression: The New Deal; The United States Federal Securities Act is signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission.
Wikipedia Photo: Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother depicts destitute pea pickers in California, centering on Florence Owens Thompson, age 32, a mother of seven children, in Nipomo, California, March 1936; Bud Fields and his family. Alabama. 1935 or 1936. Photographer: Walker Evans; Unemployed men vying for jobs at the American Legion Employment Bureau in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.
May 27th, 1933
The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"
Wikipedia Image: Three Little Pigs © Video: Silly Symphony - The Three Little Pigs, drawn by Ub Iwerks 
credit Disney, Youtube.
May 27th, 1937
In San Francisco, California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.
Wikipedia Photo: Golden Gate Bridge Aerial of the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, CA (fisheye view), © credit Amos Photography; Golden Gate Bridge, © Digital Vision / Getty Images.
May 27th, 1940
World War II:
1940 - Le Paradis massacre; 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops. Two survive.
1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency".
1941 - The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing almost 2,100 men.
1942 - The Operation Anthropoid; Reinhard Heydrich is assassinated in Prague.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
May 27th, 1958
The F-4 Phantom II makes its first flight.
Wikipedia Photo: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II.
May 27th, 1965
Vietnam War:
1965 - American warships begin the first bombardment of National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) targets within South Vietnam.
Wikipedia Photo: Vietnam_War; Side view of an HH-53 helicopter of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron as seen from the gunner's position on an A-1 of the 21st Specialist Operations Squadron. (USAF Photo by Ken Hackman), Boston Globe;
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, credit Free Republic;
Vietnam War: The Big Picture / Boston Globe.
May 27th, 1986
Dragon Quest, the game credited as setting the template for role-playing video games, is released in Japan.
Wikipedia Photo: Dragon Quest (© Wizards of the Coast, by Kerem Beyit).
May 27th, 1995
In Culpeper, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.
Wikipedia Photo: Christopher Reeve ● Superman and Clark Kent.
May 27th, 1996
Chechen War:
First Chechnya War; Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire.
Wikipedia Photo: Chechen_War: War in Chechnya, was a conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (Chechen guerrilla warfare and raids on the flatlands vs Russia's overwhelming manpower, weaponry, and air support); Russian Mil Mi-8 helicopter brought down by Chechen fighters near the capital Grozny in 1994; Second Battle of Grozny; Battle of Grozny, Russian federal forces attempted to seize control of the mountainous area of Chechnya but were set back by Chechen guerrilla warfare and raids; Chechen little boy with makeshift wooden rifle.
May 27th, 1997
Monica Lewinsky scandal: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against United States President Bill Clinton while he is in office.
Wikipedia Photo: Monica Lewinsky scandal, Time Cover Story "If it were not for Monica Lewinsky, I think we would have Social Security ..."
May 27th, 1998
Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.
Wikipedia Photo: Oklahoma City bombing; was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. ● McVeigh and Nichols cited the federal government's actions against the Branch Davidian compound in the 1993 Waco Siege (shown above) as a reason they perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing ● The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building two days after the bombing. ● Charles Porter's photograph of firefighter Chris Fields holding the dying infant Baylee Almon won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1996. A similar photo was taken by Lester LaRue.
May 27th, 1999
Yugoslav Wars:
1999 - The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts former President Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
Wikipedia Map: Kingdom of Yugoslavia; Belgrade, Yugoslavia; A twilight moon rises above the Kamniske mountains and Slovenia’s Sava River Valley, Slovenia, credit National Geographic; Yugoslavia, November 1977, credit National Geographic.
Photo: 1995 NATO bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina / Aug. 30, 1995 by Oleg Stjepanovic (AP) ● Smoke rises from an ammunition depot in Bosnian Serb stronghold Pale near Sarajevo after NATO air strikes ● CK building in the moments after bombing ● Serbia marks the 10th anniversary of the Nato-led bombing campaign ● U.S. F-117 Nighthawk taxis to the runway before taking off from Aviano Air Base, Italy, on March 24, 1999.
May 27th, 2001
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2001 - Dos Palmas kidnappings; Members of Islamist separatist group Abu Sayyaf seize twenty hostages from an upscale island resort on Palawan in the Philippines; the hostage crisis would not be resolved until June 2002.
Wikipedia Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)
May 27th, 2006
Earthquake:
2006 - Java earthquake (May 2006); strikes at 5:53:58 am local time devastating Bantul and the city of Yogyakarta killing over 6,600 people.
Wikipedia Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.