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“I am utterly convinced that Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War, that nations will eventually unite not to destroy but to edify, and that the future will belong to those who have done the most for the sake of suffering humanity.”
~ Louis Pasteur
Wikiquote (Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) French microbiologist, chemist, pioneer of the “Germ theory of disease” and inventor of the process of Pasteurization.)
December 27th, 537
The Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is completed.
Photo: Byzantine is the great church of Hagia Sophia (Church of the Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople (562).
December 27th, 1512
The Spanish Crown issues the Laws of Burgos, governing the conduct of settlers with regard to native Indians in the New World.
Wikipedia Painting: Laws of Burgos; King of Aragon Ferdinand II of Aragon; Bartolomé de las Casas: Biblioteca Colombina, Seville (The Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, one of the earliest and most outspoken defenders of indigenous rights, railed to the Crown against the ineffectiveness of the Laws of Burgos to prevent corruption and abuses against native peoples)
The Leyes de Burgos ("Laws of Burgos"), promulgated on 27 December 1512 in Burgos, Kingdom of Castile (Spain), was the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spaniards in the Americas, particularly with regards to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas ('native Caribbean Indians'). They forbade the maltreatment of the indigenous people and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism.
December 27th, 1655
Second Northern War /the Deluge: Siege of Jasna Góra; Monks at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa are successful in fending off a month-long siege.
Painting: Defence of Jasna Góra in 1655, by January Suchodolski
December 27th, 1703
Portugal and England sign the Methuen Treaty which gives preference to Portuguese imported wines into England.
Wikipedia Photo: Lisbon, Portugal - Monument to the Portuguese maritime discoveries.
December 27th, 1814
War of 1812:
1814 - Battle of New Orleans; The American schooner USS Carolina is destroyed. It was the last of Commodore Daniel Patterson's makeshift fleet that fought a series of delaying actions that contributed to Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
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.
Battle of Lake Borgne, by Thomas Lyle Hornbrook.
December 27th, 1831
Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle during which he will begin to formulate the theory of evolution.
Wikipedia Image: Charles Darwin, while still a young man joined the scientific elite; Evolutionary tree in mid-July 1837 Darwin started his "B" notebook on Transmutation of Species, and on page 36 wrote "I think" above his first evolutionary tree; The hominoids are descendants of a common ancestor.
December 27th, 1845
Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time by Doctor Crawford Williamson Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
Wikipedia Image: Doctor Crawford Williamson Long was the first to use ether anesthetic for childbirth.
December 27th, 1918
World War I:
1918 - The Great Poland Uprising against the Germans begins.
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.
SDecember 27th, 1922
Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō the first purpose built aircraft carrier to be commissioned in the world.
Wikipedia Photo: Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō; Aerial view of Hōshō as completed in December 1922 (the first purpose built aircraft carrier to be commissioned in the world); colorized by
December 27th, 1927
Show Boat, considered to be the first true American musical, opens at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway.
Wikipedia Image: Show Boat, considered to be the first true American musical.
December 27th, 1939
Earthquake:
1939 - Erzincan earthquake; Erzincan, Turkey is hit by an earthquake, killing 30,000.
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.
December 27th, 1939
World War II:
1939 - Winter War; Battle of Kelja - Finland holds off a Soviet attack.
1942 - Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia is founded.
Post World War II:
1945 - The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.
1949 - Indonesian National Revolution; The Netherlands officially recognizes Indonesian independence. End of the Dutch East Indies.
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.
December 27th, 1966
Cave of Swallows: the largest known cave shaft in the world, is discovered in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
Wikipedia Photo: The Cave of Swallows: (Cave of the Swallows (Spanish: Sótano de las Golondrinas)), one of the biggest natural depths of the world located in the town of Aquismón in the state of San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
December 27th, 1968
Apollo program: Apollo 8; splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.
Wikipedia Photo: Apollo Program: Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing and the first walk on the surface on the moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia.
The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi).
December 27th, 1978
Antarctica:
1978 - The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in the South Pole recorded temperatures of 7.5 °F (−13.6 °C), making it the highest temperature to ever be recorded in the South Pole.
Wikipedia Photo: Antarctica (8/30/2012), credit National Geographic; Infrared satellite image of Antarctica, credit © Visual Photos.
December 27th, 1978
Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.
Wikipedia Image: Western Europe Satellite, credit NASA.
December 27th, 1979
Soviet war in Afghanistan: The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.
Wikipedia Photo: Soviet ground forces in action while conducting an offensive operation against the Islamist resistance, the Mujahideen; Mujahideen praying in Shultan Valley, 1987; Soviet soldier in Afghanistan, 1988; Mujahideen, 1987; Soviet troops withdrawing from Afghanistan in 1988; A column of Soviet BTR armored personnel carriers departing from Afghanistan.
December 27th, 2001
People's Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade relations with the United States.
Wikipedia Photo: China from NASA Wordwind Satellite; © Great Wall of China, credit National Geographic; LongJi Terrace, credit National Geographic; Great Bear Rainforest, credit Paul Nicklen, National Geographic; Platoons of clay soldiers were buried with China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di, (required a labor force of 700,000 to build), credit O. Louis Mazzatenta, National Geographic.
December 27th, 2004
Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.
Wikipedia Image: Artist rendering depicts how a magnetar might appear if we could travel to one and view it up close, something that would not be advisable, credit: © Sky & Telescope, Gregg Dinderman; Artist rendering depicts the Earth and Space, credit Ascensionearth2012.org.