May 27
1647
The first recorded execution of a witch reportedly took place in Massachusetts when Achsah Young was hanged.
1703
St. Petersburg was founded by Czar Peter the Great.
1936
The Queen Mary left England on its maiden voyage, arriving in France four hours later.
1937
Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco opened.
1941
British ships sank the German battleship Bismarck off the coast of France, resulting in the loss of 2,300 lives.
1994
Nobel-prize winning dissident, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia after 20 years in exile.
1996
After a year and a half of bloodshed, Russian President Boris Yeltsin met with the leader of the Chechen rebels and negotiated a cease-fire.
1999
Slobodan Milosevic was indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague for crimes against humanity.
Birthdays
Henry Kissinger
Pronunciation: [kis´unjur]
1923–, American political scientist and U.S. Secretary of State (1973–77), born in Fürth, Germany.
Cornelius Vanderbilt
industrialist, financier (1794)
Julia Ward Howe
author and social reformer (1819)
Wild Bill Hickok
frontier marshal (1837)
Dashiell Hammett
writer (1894)
Rachel Louise Carson
biologist, author (1907)
John Cheever
novelist (1912)