TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Monday, April 27, the 117th day of 2015. There are 248 days left in the year.

In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives in the Philippines.

In 1777, the only land battle in Connecticut during the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Ridgefield, took place, resulting in a limited British victory.

In 1822, the 18th president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio.

In 1865, in America’s worst maritime disaster, the steamer Sultana, carrying freed Union prisoners of war, exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee; death toll estimates vary from 1,500 to 2,000. Cornell University was established as New York Gov. Reuben E. Fenton signed a measure approving its charter.

In 1925, the song “Yes, Sir! That’s My Baby” by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn was published by Irving Berlin, Inc. of New York.

In 1941, German forces occupied Athens during World War II.

In 1967, Expo ‘67 was officially opened in Montreal by Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.

In 1973, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray resigned after it was revealed that he’d destroyed files removed from the safe of Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt.

In 1982, the trial of John W. Hinckley Jr., who had shot four people, including President Ronald Reagan, began in Washington. (The trial ended with Hinckley’s acquittal by reason of insanity.)

In 1994, former President Richard M. Nixon was remembered at an outdoor funeral service attended by all five of his successors at the Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, California.