December 27
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Featured Event
Dennis Jarvis (CC-BY-2.0) (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
When it was consecrated on this day in 537 as an Eastern Orthodox church, the Hagia Sophia was the worldâs largest church. In subsequent centuries it became a Roman Catholic cathedral, a museum, and a mosque. [Read todayâs edition of Today in History >>]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland
Imagination should give wings to our thoughts but we always need decisive experimental proof, and when the moment comes to draw conclusions and to interpret the gathered observations, imagination must be checked and documented by the factual results of the experiment.
French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur, born this day in 1822, made many valuable contributions to the history of science, including originating vaccines for rabies and anthrax and developing pasteurization.
Famous Birthdays
More on December 27
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
2024
Asteroid 2024 YR4 was discovered, briefly alarming scientists who identified a remote possibility that it could strike Earth on December 22, 2032. Later calculations determined that it will pass by Earth.
© Clarence WilliamsâLos Angeles Times/Getty Images
2015
American painter, sculptor, and printmaker Ellsworth Kellyâwho was a leading exponent of the hard-edge style, in which abstract contours are sharply and precisely definedâdied in Spencertown, New York. [Sort fact from fiction in our artists and painters quiz.]
Reuters/Alamy
2007
Benazir Bhuttoâwho became prime minister of Pakistan in 1988, making her the first woman leader of a Muslim nation in modern historyâwas assassinated in Rawalpindi while campaigning for parliamentary elections. [Read our list of six of the first women heads of state.]
EncyclopĂŠdia Britannica, Inc.
1978
Houari Boumedienne, president of Algeria, died at age 51. [How much do you know about African leaders?]
Lee Lockwood/Black Star
1958
Rebel forces under Che Guevara routed a Cuban government garrison and captured an armored train filled with weapons and ammunition, helping to bring the Cuban Revolution to an end a few days later. [Learn more about how the revolution made Fidel Castro Cubaâs leader]
Fred Mayer/Magnum Photos
1949
The Dutch formally relinquished control over Indonesia, four years after Sukarno, who became its first president, had declared the country independent.
Sovfoto
1932
The internal passport system, previously denounced by Vladimir Lenin as one of the worst stigmas of tsarist backwardness and despotism, was reinstated in the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin. [Test your knowledge of Russian history.]
Pictorial Parade
1901
Marlene Dietrichâwhose beauty, voice, aura of sophistication, and languid sensuality made her one of the worldâs most glamorous movie starsâwas born in what is today Berlin. [Take our women in classic cinema quiz.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital id: ppmsca 09855)
1845
In a newspaper column, journalist John L. OâSullivan outlined a notion of Manifest Destinyâthe supposed inevitability of the continued territorial expansion of the boundaries of the United States westward to the Pacific and beyondâthat became widely influential in 19th-century American politics and culture.
Universa Images Group/Getty Images
1831
Charles Darwin set sail on the HMS Beagle, beginning the voyage on which he would formulate his theory of evolution. [What Darwin got right (and wrong) about evolution.]
Wellcome Collection, London (4989i)
1571
German astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered three major laws of planetary motion, was born. [Test your knowledge of astronomy and space.]
© DEA/G. DAGLI ORTIâDe Agostini/Getty Images
1512
Ferdinand II issued the Laws of Burgos to âregulate the relationsâ between Spaniards and Native peoples in Spainâs American colonies.