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“He caught glimpses of everything, but saw nothing.”
~ Victor Hugo in Les Miserables
Wikipedia (Victor Hugo (February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) is recognized as the most influential French Romantic writer of the 19th century and is often identified as the greatest French poet.)
August 27th, 479 BC
Greco-Persian Wars: Battle of Plataea; forces led by Persian at Mardonius are routed by Pausanias commander of the Greek army.
Wikipedia Image: Satellite image of Salamis Island, with the straits to the mid-right; Parthenon at the Acropolis in Athens; Battle of Salamis.
August 27th, 410
Sack of Rome (410): Visigoths under king Alaric I end the pillage of Rome after three days.
Wikipedia Image: Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
August 27th, 1776
American Revolutionary War:
1776 - Battle of Long Island; what is now Brooklyn, New York - British forces under General William Howe defeat Americans under General George Washington.
Wikipedia Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
Grand Union - Stars and Stripes Flag
August 27th, 1793
French Revolution, French Revolutionary Wars:
1793 - French counter-revolution; Siege of Toulon - The port of Toulon revolts and admits the British fleet, which lands troops and seizes the port leading to Siege of Toulon.
Wikipedia Painting: Henri de La Rochejacquelein at the Battle of Cholet in 1793 by Paul-Emile Boutigny, (19th C.), Musée d'art et d'histoire de Cholet, Cholet, France.
August 27th, 1798
Irish Rebellion of 1798: Battle of Castlebar; the port of Wolfe Tone's United Irish and French forces clash with the British Army France, resulting in the creation of the French puppet Republic of Connaught.
Wikipedia Painting: In End of the Irish Invasion; (the Destruction of the French Armada, 1797), James Gillray caricatured the failure of Hoche's expedition.
August 27th, 1810
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1810 - Battle of Grand Port; the French Navy defeats the British Royal Navy, preventing the British from taking the harbour of Grand Port on Île de France.
1813 - Battle of Dresden; Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte defeats a larger force of Austrians, Russians and Prussians.
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 Grand Port.
August 27th, 1832
Black Hawk War: Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.
Wikipedia Painting: Black Hawk, a member of the Sauk and Fox ( In 1832 a war broke out in Illinois over resistance to removal, called the Black Hawk War)
August 27th, 1859
Titusville, Pennsylvania: Petroleum is discovered leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well.
Wikipedia Painting: Oil Fields of Titusville, Pennsylvania - Pennsylvania Historical Commission
August 27th, 1861
American Civil War:
1861 - Union forces attack Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
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.
August 27th, 1883
Krakatoa erupted, killing 36,417 people.
Wikipedia Photo: Krakatoa, Discovery Channel's Krakatoa: Volcano of Destruction, Washington Post - Newsweek.
August 27th, 1896
Anglo-Zanzibar War: between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar - the shortest war in world history (09:00 to 09:45).
Wikipedia Photo: Zanzibar Island
August 27th, 1916
World War I:
1916 - Romania declares war against Austria-Hungary , entering World War I as one of the Allied nations.
Wikipedia Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration.
August 27th, 1921
British install the son of Sharif Hussein bin Ali (leader of the Arab Revolt as King Faisal I of Iraq.
Wikipedia Photo: King Faisal I / King Jehu of Israel bows before Shalmaneser III of Assyria, 825 BC
August 27th, 1922
Turkish army takes the Aegean city of Afyonkarahisar from the Greeks.
Wikipedia Photo: Afyonkarahisar
August 27th, 1927
The Famous Five (Canada): file a petition to the Supreme Court of Canada, asking, "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?".
Wikipedia Photo: Famous Five, which depicts their reaction on hearing of the judgement of the Privy Council in Great Britain declaring women 'persons', and eligible to sit in the Senate. Courtesy of the Famous 5 Foundation, Calgary, Alberta. by Mark Mennie
August 27th, 1928
Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war is signed by the first 15 nations to do so. Ultimately sixty-one nations will sign it.
Wikipedia Photo: Kellogg-Briand Pact / © Columbia Pictures, Dr. Strangelove. The war room, where there will be no fighting.
August 27th, 1939
First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178 turbojet.
Wikipedia Photo: He 178 replica at Rostock-Laage Airport
August 27th, 1943
World War II:
1943 - Pacific Theater of Operations; Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island.
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.
August 27th, 1962
Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Wikipedia Photo: Artist's concept of Mariner 2 near Venus. credit National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
August 27th, 1991
Dissolution of the Soviet Union:
1991 - Moldova declares independence from the Soviet Union
Wikipedia Image: Russia Satellite Map. Moldova.
August 27th, 2003
Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) distant.
Wikipedia Photo: Earth - Mars. NASA
August 27th, 2013
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2013 - Muzaffarnagar riots; The riots between two religious communities started at Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh India.
2009 - Kokang incident; The Burmese military junta and ethnic armies begin three days of violent clashes in the Kokang Special Region.
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)
August 27th, 2011
Hurricane Irene strikes the United States east coast, killing 47 and causing an estimated $15.6 billion in damage.
Wikipedia Image: Hurricane Irene strikes the United States east coast, killing 47 and causing an estimated $15.6 billion in damage. (NOAA)