September 27 - Packed

Packed

This Day In History

1066

William the Conqueror and his army set sail from the mouth of the Somme River, beginning the Norman Conquest of England.

1540

The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) receives its charter from Pope Paul III.

1590

Pope Urban VII dies 13 days after being chosen as the Pope, making his reign the shortest papacy in history.

1777

Lancaster, Pennsylvania is the capital of the United States, for one day.

1822

Jean-François Champollion announces that he has deciphered the Rosetta stone.

1825

The Stockton and Darlington Railway opens, and begins operation of the world's first service of locomotive-hauled passenger trains.

1905

The physics journal Annalen der Physik received Albert Einstein's paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", introducing the equation E=mc².

1930

Bobby Jones wins the U.S. Amateur Championship to complete the Grand Slam of golf. The old structure of the grand slam was the U.S. Open, British Open, U.S. Amateur, and British Amateur.

1938

RMS Queen Elizabeth launched in Glasgow.

1968

The stage musical Hair opens at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, where it played 1,998 performances until its closure was forced by the roof collapsing in July 1973.

1983

Richard Stallman announces the GNU project to develop a free Unix-like operating system.

1997

Communications are suddenly lost with the Mars Pathfinder space probe.

2007

NASA launches the Dawn probe.

Famous Birthdays

1389

Cosimo de' Medici, Italian art patron and de facto ruler of Florence (d. 1464)

1696

Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Italian Catholic bishop (d. 1787)

1722

Samuel Adams, American revolutionary leader (d. 1803)

1803

Samuel Francis du Pont, American admiral (d. 1865)

1840

Alfred Thayer Mahan, American captain and historian (d. 1914)
Thomas Nast, German-born American political cartoonist (d. 1902)

1885

Harry Blackstone, Sr., American magician (d. 1965)

1918

Martin Ryle, English radio astronomer, Nobel laureate (d. 1984)

1920

William Conrad, American actor (d. 1994)

1934

Wilford Brimley, American actor

1941

Don Nix, songwriter, composer, arranger, musician, and author

1947

Meat Loaf, American singer
1949
Mike Schmidt, American baseball player
1958
Shaun Cassidy, American screenplay writer, TV producer, actor, and singer
1969
Sofia Milos, American actress
1972
Gwyneth Paltrow, American actress