Today in History: 3 astronauts die in fire during test of Apollo spacecraft

Today is Saturday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2024. There are 339 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Jan. 27, 1967, astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft.

On this date:

In 1756, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria.

In 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

In 1888, the National Geographic Society was incorporated in Washington, D.C.

In 1944, during World War II, the Soviet Union announced the complete end of the deadly German siege of Leningrad, which had lasted for more than two years.

In 1945, during World War II, Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.

In 1973, the Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, greeted at the White House the 52 former American hostages released by Iran.

In 1984, singer Michael Jackson suffered serious burns to his scalp when pyrotechnics set his hair on fire during the filming of a Pepsi-cola TV commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in

Los Angeles.

In 2006, Western Union delivered its last telegram.

In 2010, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the ipad tablet during a presentation in San Francisco. and J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of “The Catcher in the Rye,” died in Cornish, New Hampshire, at age 91.

In 2013, Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil, killing 242 people.

In 2017, President

Donald Trump barred all refugees from entering the United States for four months, declaring the ban necessary to prevent “radical Islamic terrorists” from entering the nation.

In 2018, comic strip artist Mort Walker, a World War II veteran who satirized the Army with the antics of the lazy private “Beetle Bailey,” died in Connecticut at age 94.

In 2020, China confirmed more than 2,700 cases of the new coronavirus with more than 80 deaths in that country. U.S. health officials said they believed the risk to Americans remained low and that they had no evidence that the new virus was spreading in the United States.

In 2021, Cloris

Leachman, who won an Oscar for the “The Last Picture Show” and Emmys for her comic work on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and other TV series, died at 94.

In 2022, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer confirmed that he would step down from the court later in the year.