December 27 birthdays & history

Famous people born on December 27

• 1822Louis Pasteur, French chemist and microbiologist
• 1901Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress and singer
• 1571Johannes Kepler, German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer
• 1965Salman Khan, Indian film actor and producer
• 1948Gérard Depardieu, French-Russian actor
• 1995Timothée Chalamet, French-American actor
• 1797Ghalib, Indian poet
• 1595Bohdan Khmelnytsky, hetman of Ukraine
• 1934Larisa Latynina, Ukrainian gymnast and coach
• 1988Hayley Williams, American singer-songwriter

What happened on December 27

• 537The reconstructed Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was inaugurated; built as a church, it later became a mosque and a museum.
• 1845Having coined the phrase "manifest destiny" the previous July, journalist John L. O'Sullivan argued in his newspaper New York Morning News that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country.
• 1911"Jana Gana Mana", the national anthem of India, is first sung in the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress.
• 1927Kern and Hammerstein's musical play Show Boat, considered to be the first true American musical play, opens at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway.
• 1929Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin orders the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class".
• 1932New York City's Radio City Music Hall opened with the world's largest auditorium at the time.
• 1935Regina Jonas is ordained as the first female rabbi in the history of Judaism.
• 1945The International Monetary Fund is created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.
• 1966The Cave of Swallows, the largest known cave shaft in the world, is discovered in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
• 1968Apollo program: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital crewed mission to the Moon.
• 1999Burger King and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission order a recall of plastic Poké Ball containers after they are determined to be a choking hazard.
• 2002The human-cloning company Clonaid claimed to have performed the first reproductive cloning of a human, but provided no evidence for the claim.

Also observed on December 27

• Constitution Day (North Korea)
• Saint Stephen's Day (Eastern Orthodox Church; a public holiday in Romania)
• The third of the Twelve Days of Christmas (Western Christianity)