TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, DEC. 27, the 361st day of 2017. There are four days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1927, the musical play “Show Boat,” with music by Jerome Kern and libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II, opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York, beginning a run of 572 performances.
In 1831, naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a round-the-world voyage aboard the HMS Beagle.
In 1892, the cornerstone was laid for the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City.
In 1904, James Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” opened at the Duke of York’s Theater in London. In 1945, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were formally established.
In 1947, the original version of the puppet character Howdy Doody made his TV debut on NBC’s “Puppet Playhouse.”
In 1949, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands signed an act recognizing Indonesia’s sovereignty after more than three centuries of Dutch rule.
In 1968, Apollo 8 and its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.
In 1979, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown and executed, was replaced by Babrak Karmal.
In 1985, Palestinian guerrillas opened fire inside the Rome and Vienna airports; 19 victims were killed, plus four attackers who were slain by police and security personnel. American naturalist Dian Fossey, 53, who had studied gorillas in the wild in Rwanda, was found hacked to death.
In 1995, Israeli jeeps sped out of the West Bank town of Ramallah, capping a seven-week pullout giving Yasser Arafat control over 90 percent of the West Bank’s one million Palestinian residents and one-third of its land.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor John Amos is 78. ABC News correspondent Cokie Roberts is 74. Actor Gerard Depardieu is 69. Jazz singer-musician T.S. Monk is 68. Rock musician David Knopfler (Dire Straits) is 65. Actress Tovah Feldshuh and journalist-turnedpolitician Arthur Kent are 64. Actor Ian Gomez and actress Theresa Randle are 53. Actress Eva LaRue, and wrestler and actor Bill Goldberg are 51. Actress Tracey Cherelle Jones and bluegrass singer-musician Darrin Vincent (Dailey & Vincent) are 48. Musician Matt Slocum is 45. Actor Masi Oka is 43. Actor Aaron Stanford is 41. Actress Emilie de Ravin is 36. Rock singer Hayley Williams (Paramore) is 29. Country singer Shay Mooney (Dan & Shay) is 26.