TODAY IN HISTORY

SUNDAY MAR 27, 2022

1977

In aviation’s worst disaster, 583 people were killed when a KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off in heavy fog, crashed into a Pan Am 747 on an airport runway on the Canary Island of Tenerife.

1513

Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sighted present-day Florida.

1625

Charles I acceded to the English throne upon the death of James I.

1794

Congress approved “An Act to provide a Naval Armament” of six armed ships.

1912

First lady Helen Herron Taft and the wife of Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Viscountess Chinda, planted the first two of 3,000 cherry trees given to the U.S. as a gift by the mayor of Tokyo.

1945

During World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower told reporters in Paris that German defenses on the Western Front had been broken.

1964

Alaska was hit by a magnitude 9.2earthquake and tsunamis that together claimed about 130 lives.

1968

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the Earth in 1961, died when his MIG-15 jet crashed during a routine training flight near Moscow; he was 34.

1973

“The Godfather” won the Academy Award for best picture of 1972, but its star, Marlon Brando, refused to accept his Oscar for best actor. Liza Minnelli won best actress for “Cabaret.”

1975

Construction began on the Trans-alaska Pipeline, which was completed two years later.

1980

123 workers died when a North Sea floating oil field platform, the Alexander Kielland, capsized during a storm.

2019

Facebook said it was extending its ban on hate speech to prohibit the promotion and support of white nationalism and white separatism.