1927 CE

The Chinese Civil War intensifies as the Shanghai massacre sees Chiang Kai-shek purge Communists from the Kuomintang, while the Autumn Harvest Uprising led by Mao Zedong marks an early Communist insurrection; the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 devastates seven U.S. states, displacing hundreds of thousands; aviator Charles Lindbergh completes the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris; the Ararat rebellion erupts as Kurdish nationalists resist Turkish rule in eastern Anatolia; the Bath School disaster in Michigan kills 45 in the deadliest U.S. school bombing; and The Jazz Singer introduces synchronized sound, launching the era of “talkies” and transforming cinema.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

April 12 – The Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 renames the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The change acknowledges that the Irish Free State is no longer part of the Kingdom.source
April 18 – The Kuomintang (Nationalist Chinese) set up a government in Nanking, China.source
May 9 – The Australian Parliament convenes for the first time in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. Previously, the Parliament had met in Melbourne, Victoria.source
May 20 – By the Treaty of Jeddah, the United Kingdom recognizes the sovereignty of Ibn Saud over the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd, the future Saudi Arabia.source
May 24 – The United Kingdom cuts its diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union due to revelations of espionage and underground agitation.source
June 4 – Yugoslavia severs diplomatic relations with Albania.source
September 25 – A treaty signed by the League of Nations Slavery Commission abolishes all types of slavery.source
November 1 – İsmet İnönü forms a new government in Turkey (the 5th government).source
November 12 – Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with undisputed control of the Soviet Union.source
December 14 – Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom.source
December – The Communist Party Congress condemns all deviation from the general party line in the USSR.source

Conflict & Security

January 24 – U.S. Marines invade Nicaragua by orders of President Calvin Coolidge, intervening in the Nicaraguan Civil War, and remaining in the country until 1933.source
February 7 – An attempted military coup in Lisbon, Portugal, is successfully put down.source
February 12 – British troops land in Shanghai as a result of UK government concerns about the safety of residents in the British settlement.source
February 19 – A general strike takes place in Shanghai in protest against the presence of British troops.source
March 24 – Nanking Incident: After six foreigners have been killed in Nanking, and it appears that Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party forces will overrun the foreign consulates, warships of the U.S. Navy and the British Royal Navy fire shells and shoot to disperse the crowds.source
April 12 – April 12 Incident (Shanghai Massacre): Kuomintang troops kill a number of communist-supporting workers in Shanghai. The 1st United Front between the Nationalists and Communist ends, and the Civil War lasting until 1949 begins.source
April 23 – Cardiff City wins the FA Cup, beating Arsenal 1–0; it is the only time a team from outside England has won the competition.source
May 18 – Bath School disaster: A series of violent attacks by a school official results in 45 deaths, mostly of children, in Bath Township, Michigan, United States.source
June 9 – The Soviet Union executes 20 people for alleged espionage in retaliation for the assassination two days earlier of Pyotr Voykov, the Soviet ambassador to Poland, at the railway station in Warsaw. Voykov had been shot by 19-year-old Boris Kowerda, an exiled Russian, in retaliation for having signed the death warrants in 1918 for Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian Imperial Family.source
July 15 – July Revolt of 1927: After police in Vienna fire on an angry crowd, 85 protesters (mostly members of the Social Democratic Party of Austria) and 5 policemen are left dead; more than 600 people are injured.source
July 24 – The Menin Gate is dedicated as a war memorial at Ypres, Belgium.source
August 1 – The Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army is formed, during the Nanchang Uprising.source
August 22 – 200 people demonstrate in Hyde Park, London, against the death sentences on Italian American anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Other protests are held across the world at this time.source
September – The Autumn Harvest Uprising occurs in China.source
October 9 – The Mexican government crushes a rebellion in Veracruz.source
November 21 – The Columbine Mine massacre: Colorado state police open fire on 500 rowdy but unarmed miners during a strike, killing 6.source
December 19 – Three members of the revolutionary movement for Indian independence – Pandit Ram Prasad Bismil, Thakur Roshan Singh and Ashfaqulla Khan – are executed by the British Raj. Rajendra Nath Lahiri had been executed two days before.source

Exploration & Expansion

January 7 – The Harlem Globetrotters exhibition basketball team play their first ever road game in Hinckley, Illinois.source
April 27 – João Ribeiro de Barros becomes the first non-European to make a transatlantic flight, flying from Genoa, Italy, to Fernando de Noronha, Brazil.source
June 29–July 1 – Commander Richard E. Byrd, Bernt Balchen, George Noville and Bert Acosta take off from Roosevelt Field, New York, in the Fokker Trimotor airplane America, and cross the Atlantic to the coast of France, having to ditch there because of bad weather; all four men survive the emergency landing.source
October 4 – Carving of the sculptures at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, begins.source

Religion & Belief

July 10 – Timothy Coughlan, Bill Gannon and Archie Doyle, members of the anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army, shoot dead Kevin O'Higgins, Vice-President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State and Minister for Justice, as O'Higgins is walking to Mass in Dublin.source
July 13 (Wednesday, Tamuz 13, 5687): 12:30 – Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn is freed from the imprisonment which began on June 15 (Wednesday, Sivan 15, 5687) at 02:15 in exile, in the Russian town of Kostroma.source

Economy & Finance

April 21 – A banking crisis hits Japan.source

Technology & Infrastructure

January 1 – The British Broadcasting Company becomes the British Broadcasting Corporation, when its royal charter of incorporation takes effect. John Reith becomes the first Director-General.source
January 7 – The first transatlantic telephone call is made via radio from New York City, United States, to London, United Kingdom.source
February 23 – The U.S. Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) begins to regulate the use of radio frequencies.source
March 14 – Pan American World Airways is founded by Juan T. Trippe.source
April 7 – Bell Telephone Co. transmits an image of Herbert Hoover (then the Secretary of Commerce), which becomes the first successful long distance demonstration of television.source
May 23 – Nearly 600 members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Institute of Radio Engineers view a live demonstration of television at the Bell Telephone Building in New York City, just over a year after John Logie Baird of Scotland had first demonstrated an electromechanical system to members of the Royal Society in London.source
May – Philo Farnsworth of the United States transmits his first experimental electronic television motion pictures, as opposed to the electromechanical TV systems that others have used before.source
August 2 – American electrical engineer Harold Stephen Black invents the negative-feedback amplifier.source
August 7 – The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario, and Buffalo, New York.source
September 7 – The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Farnsworth.source
September 18 – The Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System (later known as CBS) is formed in the United States, and goes on the air with 47 radio stations.source
November 12 – The Holland Tunnel opens to traffic, as the first vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River, linking New Jersey with New York City.source
December 30 – The first Asian commuter metro line, the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, opens in Japan.source

Science & Discovery

January 10 – Fritz Lang's futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany.source
February – Werner Heisenberg formulates his famous uncertainty principle, while employed as a lecturer at Niels Bohr's Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen.source
March 29 – Henry Segrave breaks the land speed record, driving the Sunbeam 1000 hp at Daytona Beach, Florida.source
May 20–21 – Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo, nonstop transatlantic airplane flight, from New York City to Paris, France, in his single-engined aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis.source
June 4–6 – Clarence Chamberlin and Charles Albert Levine take off from Roosevelt Field, New York, and fly to Eisleben, Germany, in the Wright-Bellanca WB-2 Columbia aircraft Miss Columbia, two weeks after Charles Lindbergh's historic solo flight.source
June 29 – Solar eclipse of June 29, 1927: A total eclipse of the sun takes place over Wales, northern England, southern Scotland, Norway, northern Sweden, northmost Finland, and the northmost extremes of Russia.source
July 1 – The Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration (FDIA) is established as a United States federal agency.source
October – Niels Bohr presents his theoretical principle of complementarity at the Fifth Solvay Conference on Physics.source
December 17 – Australian cricketer Bill Ponsford makes 437 runs to break his own world record for the highest first-class cricket score at Melbourne Cricket Ground.source

Crime & Justice

April 27 – The Carabineros de Chile (Chilean national police force and gendarmerie) are created.source
May 12 – British police officers raid the office of the Soviet trade delegation in London.source
June 13 – Léon Daudet, the leader of the French monarchists, is arrested in France.source

Disasters & Accidents

January 9 – The Laurier Palace Theatre fire at a movie theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, kills 78 children.source
May 17 – U.S. Army aviation pioneer Major Harold Geiger dies in the crash of his Airco DH.4 airplane, at Olmsted Field, Pennsylvania.source
October 25 – The Italian ocean liner Principessa Mafalda capsizes off Porto Seguro, Brazil; at least 314 people are killed.source
November 14 – Pittsburgh gasometer explosion: Three Equitable Gas storage tanks in the North Side of Pittsburgh explode, killing 26 people and causing damage estimated between $4.0 million and $5.0 million.source
December 17 – United States Navy submarine is accidentally rammed and sunk by United States Coast Guard cutter John Paulding off Provincetown, Massachusetts, killing everyone aboard despite several unsuccessful attempts to raise the submarine.source

Climate & Environment

February 14 – A magnitude 6.1 earthquake, with a maximum MSK intensity of VII–VIII (Very strong – Damaging), kills 50 in Yugoslavia.source
March 7 – 1927 Kita Tango earthquake: A 7.0 earthquake kills at least 2,925 in the Toyooka and Mineyama areas of western Honshu, in Japan.source
April 22–May 5 – The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 strikes 700,000 people, in the greatest natural disaster in American history through this time.source
May 22 – The 7.6 Gulang earthquake affects Gansu in northwest China with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), leaving over 40,000 dead.source
June – The volcanic island of Anak Krakatau begins to form in the Sunda Strait of Indonesia.source
July 11 – The 1927 Jericho earthquake strikes Palestine, killing around 300 people; it is the largest ever recorded in this part of the Middle East. The effects are especially severe in Nablus, but damage and fatalities are also reported in many areas of Palestine and Transjordan, such as Amman, Salt, Jordan, and Lydda.source
August 24–25 – The 1927 Nova Scotia hurricane hits the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, causing massive damage and at least 56 deaths.source
September 29 – The East St. Louis Tornado kills 79 people and injures 550, the 2nd costliest and at least 24th deadliest tornado in U.S. history.source
November 3–4 – Great Vermont Flood of 1927: Floods devastating Vermont cause the "worst natural disaster in the state's history".source
December 29 – Eruption of the Perboewatan and Danan undersea volcanoes near Krakatoa, create the foundation for Anak Krakatau Island.source

Culture & Society

January 11 – Louis B. Mayer, head of film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), announces the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, at a banquet in Los Angeles, California.source
February 19 – In the United States, the silent romantic comedy film It starring Clara Bow, is released, popularising the concept of the "It girl".source
March 4 – A diamond rush in South Africa includes trained athletes, who have been hired by major companies to stake claims.source
May 11 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which will create the Academy Awards, is founded in the United States.source
August 10 – The Mount Rushmore Park is rededicated in the United States. President Calvin Coolidge promises national funding for the proposed carving of the presidential figures.source
October 6 – The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, premieres at the Warner Theater in New York City. Although not the first sound film, and containing very little recorded speech, it is the first to become a box-office hit, popularizing "talkies" (although silent films continue to be made for some time).source
December 1 – Chiang Kai-shek marries Soong Mei-ling in Shanghai.source

Births

January 13 – Sydney Brenner, South African biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2019)source
February 20 – Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor, film director, (Oscar winner for Lilies of the Field) (d. 2022)source
March 1 – Harry Belafonte, Jamaican-American musician, actor, and civil rights activist (d. 2023)source
March 6 – Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2014)source
March 31 – César Chávez, American labor activist, United Farm Workers founder (d. 1993)source
April 27 – Coretta Scott King, African-American civil rights leader, wife of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (d. 2006)source
July 11 – Theodore H. Maiman, American inventor, physicist who developed the laser (d. 2007)source
August 9 – Marvin Minsky, American computer scientist, Turing Award winner (Artificial intelligence) (d. 2016)source
August 18 – Rosalynn Carter, First Lady of the United States (d. 2023)source
August 21 – Thomas S. Monson, 16th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 2018)source
October 16 – Günter Grass, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2015)source
November 2 – Steve Ditko, American comic-book writer and artist (d. 2018)source
November 8 – Nguyễn Khánh, South Vietnamese politician and military leader, (d. 2013)source
December 20 – Kim Young-sam, South Korean politician, 7th President of the Republic of Korea (d. 2015)source

Deaths

January 9 – Houston Stewart Chamberlain, English-born German author (b. 1855)source
January 17 – Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts USA (b. 1860)source
January 27 – Jurgis Matulaitis-Matulevičius, Lithuanian Roman Catholic bishop and blessed (b. 1871)source
April 12 – Giuseppe Moscati, Italian doctor, researcher, professor and Roman Catholic saint (b. 1880)source
April 28 – Li Dazhao, Chinese intellectual, co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party (executed) (b. 1888)source
June 1 – Annibale Maria di Francia, Italian Roman Catholic priest and saint (b. 1851)source
June 9 – Victoria Woodhull, American feminist, spiritualist and first woman to ever run for U.S. President (b. 1838)source
July 5 – Albrecht Kossel, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1853)source
July 23 – Reginald Dyer, British army officer, perpetrator of Jallianwala Bagh massacre (b. 1864)source
August 23 – Nicola Sacco, Italian anarchist (b. 1891) (executed)source
August 23 – Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian anarchist (b. 1888) (executed)source
October 2 – John Dalzell, U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania (b. 1845)source
October 10 – Gustave Whitehead, German-born aviation pioneer (b. 1874)source
November 23 – Miguel Pro, Mexican Jesuit and Roman Catholic priest, martyr and blessed (executed) (b. 1891)source