TODAY IN HISTORY

FRIDAY AUG 27, 2021 1776

The Battle of Long Island began during the Revolutionary War as British troops attacked American forces who ended up being forced to retreat two days later.

1859

Edwin L. Drake drilled the first successful oil well in the United States, at Titusville, Pa.

1883

The island volcano Krakatoa erupted with a series of cataclysmic explosions; the resulting tidal waves in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait claimed some 36,000lives in Java and Sumatra.

1949

A violent white mob prevented an outdoor concert headlined by Paul Robeson from taking place near Peekskill, New York.

1964

President Lyndon Baines Johnson accepted his party’s nomination for a term in his own right, telling the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, “Let us join together in giving every American the fullest life which he can hope for.”

1967

Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, was found dead in his London flat from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills; he was 32.

1979

British war hero Lord Louis Mountbatten and three other people, including his 14-yearold grandson Nicholas, were killed off the coast of Ireland in a boat explosion claimed by the Irish Republican Army.

1998

Two suspects in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya were brought to the United States to face charges. and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh were convicted in 2001 of conspiring to carry out the bombing; both were sentenced to life in prison.)

2001

Israeli helicopters fired a pair of rockets through office windows and killed senior PLO leader Mustafa Zibri.

2005

Coastal residents jammed freeways and gas stations as they rushed to get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina, which was headed toward New Orleans.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Author Lady Antonia Fraser is 89. Actor Tommy Sands is 84. Bluegrass singermusician J.D. Crowe is 84. Actor Tuesday Weld is 78. Actor G.W. Bailey is 77. Actor Marianne Sagebrecht is 76. Country musician Jeff Cook is 72. Actor Paul Reubens is 69. Rock musician Alex Lifeson (Rush) is 68. Actor Peter Stormare is 68. Actor Diana Scarwid is 66. Rock musician Glen Matlock (The Sex Pistols) is 65. Golfer Bernhard Langer is 64.