Today in history
On Dec. 27, 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 1932, New York City's Radio City Music Hall first opened.
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 1970, the musical play "Hello, Dolly!" closed on Broadway after a run of 2,844 performances.
In 1979, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin (hah-FEE'-zoo-lah ah-MEEN'), 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.
One year ago: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (shin-zoh AH'-bay), accompanied by President Barack Obama, visited Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, where he offered his "sincere and everlasting condolences to the souls of those who lost their lives" in Japan's 1941 attack; Abe did not apologize, but conceded his country "must never repeat the horrors of war again." Actress Carrie Fisher died in a hospital four days after suffering a medical emergency aboard a flight to Los Angeles; she was 60. Cavaliers superstar LeBron James was voted AP Male Athlete of the Year after bringing the NBA title to Cleveland.