HISTORY T A GLANCE
TODAY is Thursday, April 27, the 117th day of 2017. There are 248 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1950 – Apartheid: In South Africa, the Group Areas Act is
passed formally segregating races. 1953 – Operation Moolah offers $50,000 to any pilot who defected with a fully mission-capable MikoyanGurevich MiG-15 to South Korea. The first pilot was to receive $100,000. 1961 – Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom, with Milton Margai as the first Prime Minister. 1967 – Expo 67 officially opens in Montreal, Canada with a large opening ceremony broadcast around the world. It opens to the public the next day. 1974 – Ten thousand march in Washington, D.C., calling for
the impeachment of US President Richard Nixon 1981 – Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse. 1986 – The city of Pripyat as well as the surrounding areas are
evacuated due to Chernobyl disaster. 1987 – The US Department of Justice bars Austrian President Kurt Waldheim from entering the United States, saying he had aided in the deportation and execution of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II. 1989 – The April 27 demonstrations, student-led protests responding to the April 26 Editorial, during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. 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 700-year history. 1993 – All members of the Zambia national football team lose their lives in a plane crash off Libreville, Gabon en route to Dakar, Senegal to play a 1994 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against Senegal. 1996 – The 1996 Lebanon war ends. 2005 – The superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France. An accident involving a bus and a train occurs in Polgahawela, Sri Lanka. 2006 – Construction begins on the Freedom Tower (later
renamed One World Trade Center) in New York City. 2012 – At least four explosions hit the Ukrainian city of
Dnipropetrovsk with at least 27 people injured. 2014 – Popes John XXIII and John Paul II are declared saints
in the first papal canonization since 1954.