History of the Day for:
December 27
- 1825: The first public railroad using steam locomotive was completed in England.
- 1831: Naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a voyage to the Pacific aboard the HMS Beagle. Darwin's discoveries during the voyage helped form the basis of his theories on evolution.
- 1845: Ether was first used in childbirth by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson, Ga., who gave it to his wife, who successfully gave birth to a baby girl.
- 1900: Militant prohibitionist Carry Nation carried out her first public smashing of a bar, at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kan.
- 1927: Joseph Stalin's faction won at the All-Union Congress in the Soviet Union and Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist party.
- 1932: The Radio City Music Hall opened in New York.
- 1937: Mae West performed the Adam & Eve skit that got her banned from NBC radio.
- 1945: The International Monetary Fund was established in Washington. 28 nations signed an agreement creating the World Bank.
- 1947: "Howdy Doody," hosted by Buffalo Bob Smith, made its debut on NBC.
- 1968: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell Jr. and W.A. Anders became the first U.S. astronauts to land at night when Apollo 8 made a safe nighttime splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1978: King Juan Carlos ratified Spain's first democratic constitution.
- 1979: Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan; "Knots Landing," a spinoff from "Dallas," debuted on CBS.
- 1981: Edmonton Oiler Wayne Gretzky became the fastest NHLer to get 100 pts (38th game).
- 1988: Bulgaria stopped jamming Radio Free Europe after more than 3 decades.
- 1991: "The Carol Burnett Show" last aired on CBS.
- 1996: Taliban forces retake the strategic Bagram air base which solidifies their buffer zone around Kabul.
- 1997: Protestant paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland.
- 2001: The People's Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade relations with the United States.
- 2002: Two truck bombs kill 72 and wound 200 at the pro-Moscow headquarters of the Chechen government in Grozny, Chechnya.
- 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.
- 2007: Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated by a suicide bomber.