August 27
1776 –
Battle of Long Island: In what is now Brooklyn, New York, British forces under General
William Howe defeat Americans under General
George Washington.
1832 –
Black Hawk, leader of the
Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the
Black Hawk War.
1859 –
Edwin Drake successfully drilled for oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, resulting in the
Pennsylvania oil rush, the first oil boom in the United States.
1881 – The
Georgia hurricane makes landfall near Savannah, Georgia, resulting in an estimated 700 deaths.
1883 –
Eruption of Krakatoa: Four enormous explosions destroy the island of Krakatoa and cause years of climate change.
1893 – The
Sea Islands hurricane strikes the United States near Savannah, Georgia, killing an estimated 1,000-2,000 people.
1896 –
Anglo-Zanzibar War: The shortest war in world history (09:00 to 09:45), between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar.
1918 –
Mexican Revolution: Battle of Ambos Nogales: U.S. Army forces skirmish against Mexican Carrancistas and their German advisors on the Mexican-American border in Arizona, in the only battle of World War I fought on American soil.
1939 – First flight of the
turbojet-powered
Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet aircraft.
1942 – First day of the
Sarny Massacre.
1962 – The
Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA.
1967 - British music entrepreneur and the manager of The Beatles,
Brian Epstein was found dead, locked in a bedroom at his London home. A coroner's inquest concluded that Epstein died from an overdose of the sleeping pill Carbitrol.
1979 – A
Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb kills British retired admiral
Lord Mountbatten and three others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Shortly after, 18 British Army soldiers are
killed in an ambush near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland.
1980 – A massive
bomb planted by extortionist John Birges explodes at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada after a failed disarming attempt by the FBI. Although the hotel is damaged, no one is injured.
1990 -
Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed when the helicopter he was flying in, hit a man-made ski slope while trying to navigate through dense fog. Vaughan had played a show at
Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, Wisconsin with
Robert Cray & His Memphis Horns, and
Eric Clapton. Vaughan was informed by a member of Clapton's crew that three seats were open on a helicopter returning to Chicago with Clapton's crew, it turned out there was only one seat left; Vaughan requested it from his older brother,
Jimmie, who obliged. Three members of Eric Clapton's entourage were also killed.
1992 -
John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to The Beatles song '
A Day In The Life' from
Sgt. Pepper sold in an auction at Sotheby's London for $100,000 (£56,600). The lyrics were put up for sale again in March 2006 by Bonhams in New York. Sealed bids were opened on 7 March 2006 and offers started at about $2 million. The lyric sheet was auctioned again by Sotheby's in June 2010 when it was purchased by an anonymous American buyer who paid $1,200,000 (£810,000).
2003 –
Mars makes its
closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) distant.
2006 –
Comair Flight 5191 crashes on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky bound for Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Of the passengers and crew, 49 of 50 are confirmed dead.
2011 –
Hurricane Irene strikes the United States east coast, killing 47 and causing an estimated $15.6 billion in damage.
Births
1809 – Hannibal Hamlin (15th VPOTUS); 1865 – Charles G. Dawes (30th VPOTUS); 1874 – Carl Bosch (
Haber–Bosch process, "On average, one-half of the nitrogen in a human body comes from synthetically fixed sources, the product of a Haber–Bosch plant."); 1877 – Charles Rolls (yeah,
that Rolls); 1890 – Man Ray

; 1896 – Léon Theremin (invented the Theremin); 1899 – C. S. Forester (wrote
The African Queen, Horatio Hornblower series of novels); 1906 – Ed Gein; 1908 – Lyndon B. Johnson (36th POTUS); 1916 – Martha Raye; 1929 – Ira Levin♪ ♫; 1939 – William Least Heat-Moon; 1942 – Daryl Dragon

(the captain from Capt. & Tennille); 1943 – Tuesday Weld; 1947 – Barbara Bach; 1949 – Jeff Cook


(Alabama); 1950 – Charles Fleischer (voiced Roger Rabbit); 1952 – Paul 'PeeWee Herman' Reubens

; 1953 – Alex Lifeson

(Rush), Peter Stormare ('Slippery Pete' from
Seinfeld;
The Big Lebowski, one of my favorite villain actors); 1956 – Glen Matlock

(Sex Pistols); 1957 – Bernhard Langer; 1959 – Downtown Julie Brown (former MTV vj); 1961 – Tom Ford; 1969 – Chandra Wilson (
Grey's Anatomy); 1970 – Tony Kanal

(No Doubt); 1973 – Cory Bowles (
Trailer Park Boys); 1976 – Sarah Chalke (
Scrubs); 1979 – Aaron
'Bitch!' Paul (
Breaking Bad); 1988 – Alexa PenaVega
Deaths
1576 – Titian

; 1963 – W. E. B. Du Bois; 1964 – Gracie Allen; 1967 – Brian Epstein (managed The Beatles); 1975 – Haile Selassie; 1979 – Louis Mountbatten; 1980 – Douglas Kenney (co-founded National Lampoon);
1990 – Stevie Ray Vaughan
; 1996 – Greg Morris (
Mission: Impossible)