Today is Wednesday, April 27, the 117th day of 2017. There are 248 days left in the year.

395 Emperor Arcadius marries Aelia Eudoxia, daughter of the Frankish general Flavius Bauto. She becomes one of the more powerful Roman empresses of Late Antiquity. 629 Shahrbaraz is crowned as king of the Sasanian Empire. 1296 First War of Scottish Independence: John Balliol’s Scottish army is defeated by an English army commanded by John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey at the Battle of Dunbar. 1565 Cebu is established becoming the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines. 1570 Pope Pius V declares Queen Elizabeth I a heretic. 1667 John Milton, blind and impoverished, sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10. 1810 Beethoven composes Für Elise. 1861 American President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus. 1865 The steamboat

Sultana, carrying 2,400 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,800, most of whom are Union survivors of the Andersonville and Cahaba Prisons. 1904 The Australian Labor Party becomes the first such party to gain national government, under Chris Watson. 1905 Exposition Universelle at Liège is opened. 1909 Sultan of Ottoman Empire Abdul Hamid II is overthrown, and is succeeded by his brother, Mehmed V. 1914 Honduras becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty. 1945 World War II: Benito Mussolini is arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, while attempting escape disguised as a German soldier. 1960 Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship. 1961 Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom, with Milton Margai as the first Prime Minister. 1974 Ten thousand march in Washington, D.C., calling for the impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon. 1981 Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse. 1992 The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, is proclaimed. 1992 Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700year history. 1994 The first democratic general election in South Africa, in which black citizens could vote.