History of the Day for:
May 27
- 1647: A "witch" was executed for the first time in the U.S. in Massachusetts.
- 1894: Author Dashiell Hammett was born.
- 1911: Actor Vincent Price was born.
- 1926: The people of Hannibal, Mo., erected the first statues of literary characters when they honored author Mark Twain with bronze figures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.
- 1933: Walt Disney's Academy Award-winning animated short "The Three Little Pigs" was first released.
- 1935: The Supreme Court declared the National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional.
- 1936: The 80,733-ton British Cunard liner Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, carrying more than 1,800 passengers.
- 1937: The Golden Gate Bridge opened, connecting San Francisco and Marin County, Calif.
- 1941: In World War II, British ships and aircraft from the carrier HMS Ark Royal sank the German battleship Bismarck in the Atlantic, killing 2,300; President Roosevelt reacted to Germany's sinking of the Robin Moor by declaring a state of unlimited national emergency.
- 1950: Frank Sinatra made his TV debut on NBC's "Star-Spangled Review" with Bob Hope.
- 1964: Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first independent prime minister, died.
- 1968: George Halas retired as head coach of the Chicago Bears after 48 years and six NFL titles.
- 1985: In a ceremony in Beijing, Britain and China agreed that Hong Kong would be returned to China in 1997.
- 1997: The Supreme Court ruled Paula Jones could pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton while he is in office.
- 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.
- 1999: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Miloševic and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
- 2005: Australian Schapelle Corby is sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in Kerobokan Prison for drug smuggling by a court in Indonesia.
- 2006: The May 2006 Java earthquake strikes at 5:53:58 AM local time (22:53:58 UTC May 26) devastating Bantul and the city of Yogyakarta killing over 6,600 people.