January 27
Subject to Britannica's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Featured Event
© Conde/Dreamstime.com
On this day in 1302, Italian poet Dante Alighieri was exiled from Florence by his political enemies. The city was embroiled in conflict involving two contentious factions within the Guelf political party—the Whites and the Blacks. Dante was ultimately exiled for choosing to side with the Whites. While in exile, he wrote his best-known poem: The Divine Comedy. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
In music the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear, but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.
Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music and who excelled at all the musical genres of his era, was born this day in 1756.
Famous Birthdays
More on January 27
Haparanda Midnight Ministerial June 2010
2018
Ingvar Kamprad—who founded the home furnishings retailer IKEA, the world’s largest seller of furniture in the early 21st century—died at age 91. [How much do you know about Swedish history?]
Paolo Cocco—AFP/Getty Images
2011
The Yemen Uprising began as thousands of protestors—inspired by demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt—rallied in Sanaa, Yemen, to demand the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and to call for political and economic reform. [Test your knowledge of Middle Eastern leaders.]
Bettmann/Getty Images
2010
J.D. Salinger—who was best known for The Catcher in the Rye (1951), which uses humor and colorful language to portray the sensitive, rebellious adolescent Holden Caulfield—died at age 91. [Take our quiz about American writers.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1996
Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara led a successful military coup in Niger against the democratically elected government of President Mahamane Ousmane. [How much do you know about African leaders?]
Lifetime Television/PRNewsFoto/AP Images
1976
The first episode of the sitcom Laverne & Shirley, a spin-off of Happy Days, aired on ABC. It starred Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall, who later became one of the first women to achieve consistent commercial success as a movie director.
U.S. Marine Corps Photograph
1973
The Paris Peace Accords formally ending the Vietnam War were signed, providing for an exchange of prisoners and for the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam, although fighting continued until 1975.
Paul Morse/The White House
1955
John G. Roberts, Jr., who served as the 17th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was born in Buffalo, New York. [Why are there nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court?]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-USZ62-25900)
1944
The Soviet Red Army ousted German and Finnish forces from Leningrad (what is today St. Petersburg), concluding an 872-day siege. [Test your knowledge of Russian history.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1885
Jerome Kern, a composer best known for his musical comedies, was born in New York City. [Take our quiz about composers and their music.]
Oscar Gustav Rejlander—Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1832
Mathematician and novelist Lewis Carroll, especially remembered for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), was born in Daresbury, Cheshire, England. [Take our quiz about the life and works of English authors.]