1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1927th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 927th year of the 2nd millennium, the 27th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year of the 1920s decade.

Contents

Events[edit]

January[edit]

Main article: January 1927

· January 1

· The Cristero War erupts in Mexico, when Catholic rebels attack the government, which had placed heavy restrictions on the Catholic Church.

· The British Broadcasting Company becomes the British Broadcasting Corporation, when it is granted a Royal Charter of incorporation. John Reith becomes the first Director-General.

· January 7

· The first transatlantic telephone call is made via radio from New York City to London.

· The Harlem Globetrotters play their first ever road game in Hinckley, Illinois.^{[citation needed]}

· January 9

· A military rebellion is crushed in Lisbon, Portugal.

· A fire at the Laurier Palace movie theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, kills 78 children.

· January 10 – Fritz Lang's futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany.

· 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.

· January 15 – Teddy Wakelam gives the first sports commentary on BBC Radio.

· January 19 – Great Britain sends troops to China, to protect foreign nationals from spreading anti-foreign riots in central China.

· 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.

· January 30 – Right-wing veterans and the Republikanischer Schutzbund clash in Schattendorf, Austria, with two fatalities resulting (see also July 15).

February[edit]

Main article: February 1927

· 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.

· February 12 – The first British troops land in Shanghai.

· February 14 – A magnitude 6.1 earthquake, with a maximum MSK intensity of VII–VIII (Very strong – Damaging), kills 50 in Yugoslavia.^[1]

· February 19

· A general strike in Shanghai protests the presence of British troops.

· In the United States, the silent romantic comedy film It starring Clara Bow, is released, popularising the concept of the "It girl".

· February 23 – The U.S. Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) begins to regulate the use of radio frequencies.

March[edit]

Main article: March 1927

· March 4 – A diamond rush in South Africa includes trained athletes, who have been hired by major companies to stake claims.

· March 6 – In Britain, 1,000 people a week die from an influenza epidemic.

· March 7 – 1927 Kita Tango earthquake: A 7.0 M_w earthquake kills at least 2,925 in the Toyooka and Mineyama areas of western Honshu, in Japan.

· March 10 – Albania mobilizes in case of an attack by Yugoslavia.

· March 11

· In New York City, the Roxy Theatre is opened by Samuel Roxy Rothafel.

· The first armored car robbery is committed by the Flatheads Gang, near Pittsburgh.

· March 14 – Pan American World Airways is founded by Juan T. Trippe.

· March 24 – Nanking Incident: After six foreigners have been killed in Nanking, and it appears that Kuomintang and Communist Party of China forces will overrun the foreign consulates, warships of the U.S. Navy and the British Royal Navy fire shells and shot to disperse the crowds.^[2]

· March 29 – Henry Segrave breaks the land speed record, driving the Sunbeam 1000 hp at Daytona Beach, Florida.^[3]

April[edit]

Main article: April 1927

· April 1 – The U.S. Bureau of Prohibition is founded (under the Department of the Treasury).

· April 5 – In Britain, the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 forbids strikes of support.

· 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.

· 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.

· 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.

· April 14 – The first Volvo automobile rolls off the production line in Gothenburg, Sweden.

· April 18 – The Kuomintang (Nationalist Chinese) set up a government in Nanking, China.

· April 21 – A banking crisis hits Japan.

· 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.

· April 23 – Cardiff City wins the FA Cup, beating Arsenal 1-0; as of 2017, this remains the only time a team from outside England has won the competition.

· April 27

· The Carabineros de Chile (Chilean national police force and gendarmery) are created.

· João Ribeiro de Barros becomes the first non-European to make a transatlantic flight, flying from Genoa, Italy, to Fernando de Noronha, Brazil.

May[edit]

Main article: May 1927

· 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.

· May 9 – The Australian Parliament convenes for the first time in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. Previously, the Parliament had met in Melbourne, Victoria.

· May 11 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the "Academy" in "Academy Awards", is founded.

· May 12 – British police officers raid the office of the Soviet trade delegation in London.

· May 13 – King George V proclaims the change of his title, from King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

· May 17 – U.S. Army aviation pioneer Major Harold Geiger dies in the crash of his Airco DH.4 airplane, at Olmsted Field, Pennsylvania.

· May 18 – Bath School disaster: A series of violent attacks results in 45 deaths, mostly of school children, in Bath Township, Michigan.

· 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.

· 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.

· May 22 – The 7.6 M_w Gulang earthquake affects Gansu in northwest China with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), leaving over 40,000 dead.

· 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 television system to the members of the Royal Society in London.

· May 24 – The United Kingdom cuts its diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, due to revelations of espionage and underground agitation.

May 20: Solo flight New York to Paris

June[edit]

Main article: June 1927

· June – The volcanic island of Anak Krakatau begins to form in the Sunda Strait of Indonesia.

· June 4 – Yugoslavia severs diplomatic relations with Albania.

· 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.

· June 7 – Pyotr Voykov, the Soviet ambassador to Poland, is murdered.

· June 9 – The Soviet Union executes 20 for alleged espionage.

· June 13

· Léon Daudet, the leader of the French monarchists, is arrested in France.

· A ticker tape parade is held for aviator Charles Lindbergh, down Fifth Avenue in New York City.

· June 28 – Spanish airline Iberia is established.

· 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.

· 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 Trimotorairplane 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.

July[edit]

Main article: July 1927

· July 1 – The Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration (FDIA) is established as a United States federal agency.

· July 10 – Kevin O'Higgins, Vice-President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State and Minister for Justice, is assassinated by the anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army in Dublin.

· July 11 – The 1927 Jericho earthquake strikes Palestine, killing around 300 people. 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.

· 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.

· 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.

· July 24 – The Menin Gate is dedicated as a war memorial at Ypres, Belgium.

August[edit]

Main article: August 1927

· August 1 – The Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army is formed, during the Nanchang Uprising.

· August 2

· U.S. President Calvin Coolidge announces, "I do not choose to run for president in 1928."

· American electrical engineer Harold Stephen Black invents the negative-feedback amplifier.

· August 7 – The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.

· August 10 – The Mount Rushmore Park is rededicated. President Calvin Coolidge promises national funding for the proposed carving of the presidential figures.

· August 22 – 200 people demonstrate in Hyde Park, London, against the death sentencing of Italian immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti.

· August 23 – Sacco and Vanzetti are executed.

· August 24 – August 25 – The Hurricane hits the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, causing massive damage and at least 56 deaths.

· August 26 – Paul R. Redfern leaves Brunswick, Georgia, flying his Stinson Detroiter "Port of Brunswick", to attempt a solo nonstop flight to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He later crashes in the Venezuelan jungle, but the crash site is never found.

September[edit]

Main article: September 1927

· September – The Autumn Harvest Uprising occurs in China.

· September 7

· The University of Minas Gerais is founded in Brazil.

· The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Farnsworth.

· September 18 – The Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System (later known as CBS) is formed, and goes on the air with 47 radio stations.

· September 25 – A treaty signed by the League of Nations Slavery Commission abolishes all types of slavery.

· September 27 – The East St. Louis Tornado kills 79 and injures 550, the 2nd costliest and at least 24th deadliest tornado in U.S. history.

October[edit]

Main article: October 1927

· October – The Fifth Solvay Conference, held in the latter half of the month, establishes the acceptance of the Copenhagen interpretation.

· October 4 – Carving of the sculptures at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota begins.

· 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).^[4]

· October 8 – The "Murderers' Row" team of the New York Yankees complete a four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series baseball championship in the United States.

· October 9 – The Mexican government crushes a rebellion in Veracruz.

· October 18 – The first flight of Pan American Airways takes off from Key West, Florida, bound for Havana, Cuba.

· October 25 – The Italian ocean liner Principessa Mafalda capsizes off Porto Seguro, Brazil; at least 314 people are killed.

· October 27

· Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands opens the Meuse-Waal Canal in Nijmegen, Holland.

· At 5:50 a.m. a ground fault gives way, causing the mine and part of the town of Worthington to collapse into a large chasm located in Ontario. Nobody is injured in the incident, as the area has been evacuated the night before after a mine foreman noticed abnormal rock shifts in the mine.

November[edit]

Main article: November 1927

· November 1 – İsmet İnönü forms a new government in Turkey (the 5th government).

· November 3–4 – Floods devastating Vermont cause the "worst natural disaster in the state's history".^[5]

· November 4 – Frank Heath and his horse Gypsy Queen return to Washington, D.C., having completed a two-year journey of 11,356 miles to all 48 of the states (of this time).

· November 12

· Mahatma Gandhi makes his first and last visit to Ceylon.

· Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with undisputed control of the Soviet Union.

· The Holland Tunnel opens to traffic, as the first vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River, linking New Jersey with New York City.

· 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.

· November 21 – The Colorado state police open fire on 500 rowdy but unarmed miners during a strike, killing 6.

December[edit]

Main article: December 1927

· December – The Communist Party Congress condemns all deviation from the general party line in the USSR.

· December 1 – Chiang Kai-shek marries Soong Mei-ling in Shanghai.

· December 2 – Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile.

· December 3 – Putting Pants on Philip, the first Laurel and Hardy film, is released.

· December 14 – Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom.

· December 15 – Marion Parker, 12, is kidnapped in Los Angeles. Her dismembered body is found on December 19, prompting the largest manhunt to date on the West Coast for her killer, William Edward Hickman, who is arrested on December 22 in Oregon.

· December 17 – United States Navy submarine S-4 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.

· 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 has been executed two days before.

· December 20 – Letalski center Maribor is established in Maribor; it will be the oldest surviving operating major flying club in the Balkans.

· December 27 – Kern and Hammerstein's musical play, Show Boat, based on Edna Ferber's novel, opens on Broadway and then goes on to become the first great classic of the American musical theater.

· December 30 – The first Asian commuter metro line, the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, opens in Japan.

Date unknown[edit]

· The Voluntary Committee of Lawyers is founded, to bring about the Repeal of Prohibition in the United States.

· World population reaches two billion.

Births[edit]

Births

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