August 27

August 27 is the 239th day of the year (240th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 126 days remaining until the end of the year. Falling near the close of the eighth month, the date has been the setting for a wide range of historically significant events, including decisive ancient battles, one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in recorded history, pioneering milestones in aviation and space exploration, major developments in international diplomacy, and the birth and death of numerous influential figures in politics, science, the arts, and letters.

Calendar Position and Background

In the Gregorian calendar, August 27 occupies the fourth-to-last position of August, placing it in late summer in the Northern Hemisphere and late winter in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Julian calendar, still used to calculate the liturgical year by several Eastern Orthodox churches, 27 August corresponds to 14 August under the current alignment (1900–2099); in the nineteenth century it corresponded to 15 August.

In astrology, a person born on August 27 falls under the zodiac sign of Virgo. The traditional birthstones of August are the peridot, sardonyx, and spinel, while the birth flowers of the month are the gladiolus and the poppy.

Historical Events

Ancient and early modern period

• 479 BC – The Battle of Plataea, traditionally dated to this day, was fought: the allied Greek forces under the Spartan commander Pausanias decisively defeated the Persian army of Mardonius, effectively ending the second Persian invasion of Greece.
• 410 – The sack of Rome by the Visigoths under Alaric I ended after three days of looting, the first time in roughly 800 years that the city had fallen to a foreign enemy.
• 1172 – Henry the Young King and Margaret of France were crowned as junior king and queen of England in a ceremony at Winchester.
• 1689 – The Treaty of Nerchinsk was signed between Russia and the Qing dynasty of China, the first treaty concluded between the two empires; it fixed the border between them and remained in force for nearly 170 years.

18th and 19th centuries

• 1776 – The Battle of Long Island (also known as the Battle of Brooklyn) took place, the largest engagement of the American Revolutionary War. British forces under General William Howe defeated the Continental Army under George Washington, who subsequently evacuated his army from New York.
• 1813 – Napoleon Bonaparte won the Battle of Dresden, one of his largest battlefield victories, defeating the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian forces of the Sixth Coalition.
• 1828 – Russian forces under General Ivan Paskevich defeated the Ottoman army at the Battle of Akhaltsikhe during the Russo-Turkish War.
• 1832 – The Sauk leader Black Hawk surrendered to United States authorities, bringing the Black Hawk War to an end.
• 1859 – Edwin Drake struck oil near Titusville, Pennsylvania, completing "Drake's Well," widely regarded as the beginning of the modern commercial petroleum industry.
• 1883 – The Indonesian volcanic island of Krakatoa was destroyed by a series of cataclysmic explosions. The eruptions generated deadly tsunamis that killed approximately 36,000 people, produced pressure waves that circled the globe multiple times, and created what is often described as the loudest sound in recorded history, heard nearly 4,800 kilometers away.
• 1896 – The Anglo-Zanzibar War was fought between the United Kingdom and the Zanzibar Sultanate. Lasting between roughly 38 and 45 minutes, it is commonly cited as the shortest war in recorded history.

20th century

• 1916 – Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary, entering the First World War on the side of the Entente.
• 1928 – The Kellogg–Briand Pact was signed in Paris by fifteen nations, renouncing war as an instrument of national policy; it was eventually ratified by more than sixty states and later invoked at the Nuremberg trials.
• 1939 – The Heinkel He 178, the world's first aircraft powered by a turbojet engine, made its maiden flight at Rostock-Marienehe, Germany, ushering in the jet age.
• 1955 – The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records was published in Britain, a volume originally commissioned by the Guinness brewing company that went on to become one of the best-selling books of all time.
• 1962 – NASA launched Mariner 2 toward Venus, the first successful interplanetary spacecraft, which flew past the planet that December.
• 1979 – Lord Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was assassinated when the IRA bombed his fishing boat off Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland; the same day, the Warrenpoint ambush killed eighteen British soldiers, making it the deadliest single day for the British Army during the Troubles.
• 1991 – Moldova declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

21st century

• 2003 – Mars made its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing within approximately 55.76 million kilometers of the planet, an astronomical event followed with great public interest.
• 2011 – Hurricane Irene made landfall near Cape Lookout, North Carolina, after devastating parts of the Caribbean; it went on to cause billions of dollars in damage along the eastern United States.

Notable Births

• 1770 – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher, a central figure of German idealism.
• 1809 – Hannibal Hamlin, American politician, 15th Vice President of the United States under Abraham Lincoln.
• 1865 – Charles G. Dawes, American banker and politician, 30th Vice President of the United States and 1925 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
• 1871 – Theodore Dreiser, American novelist, author of Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy.
• 1882 – Samuel Goldwyn, Polish-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
• 1890 – Man Ray, American