1521: After traveling three-quarters of the way around the globe, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan is killed during a tribal skirmish on Mactan Island in the Philippines.
1667: Blind and impoverished, English poet John Milton sells the copyright of “Paradise Lost” for £10.
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1810: Ludwig van Beethoven composes “Für Elise”
“Bagatelle No. 25” for solo piano is one of the German composer’s most popular works and one of the most recognized melodies in the history of music.
1956: Rocky Marciano retires as world heavyweight champion. World heavyweight champ Rocky Marciano retires from boxing at age 31, saying he wants to spend more time with his family.
1961: Sierra Leone becomes an independent republic. The West African country’s first Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai, ended over 150 years of British colonial rule.
1972: Francis Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian politician, political theorist, and revolutionary died on 27 April 2024 at the age of 62. He served as Prime Minister of the Gold Coast from 1952 until 1957, when it gained independence from Britain. He was then the first Prime Minister and then the President of Ghana, from 1957 until 1966.
1980: Media tycoon Ted Turner (born 1938) announces the creation of CNN, the first 24-hour cable news network.
1992: For the first time in its 700-year history, the British House of Commons is presided over by a female Speaker. Betty Boothroyd served as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1992 to 2000.
1994: South Africa holds its first multiracial elections. More than 22 million South Africans turn out to cast ballots in the country’s first multiracial parliamentary elections. An overwhelming majority chose anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela to head a new coalition government that included his African National Congress Party, former President F.W. de Klerk’s National Party, and Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party.
2005: The Airbus A380 takes to the skies for the first time
The double-deck airliner is the world’s largest commercial jet.
2007: An oncoming truck crashed into the Edo state governor’s (Governor Adams Aliyu Oshiomole) convoy, killing two journalists and a cameraman.
2009: GM announces plans to phase out Pontiac. On April 27, 2009, the struggling American auto giant General Motors (GM) said it plans to discontinue production of its more than 80-year-old Pontiac brand. Pontiac’s origins date back to the Oakland Motor Car, which was founded in 1907 in Pontiac, Michigan, by Edward Murphy, a horse-drawn carriage manufacturer.
BIRTHS ON THIS DAY APRIL 27
Aminata Sow Fall
Senegalese writer and the first black woman from Francophone Africa to have a published novel, in Saint-Louis, French West Africa. The first woman president of Senegal’s Writer Association, she served on the Commission for Educational Reform, tasked with the integration of African literature into the French syllabus taught in Senegalese schools.
Russell T Davies, 61 years
Stephen Russell Davies OBE FRSL, better known as Russell T Davies was born on 27 April 1963. He is a Welsh screenwriter and television producer. He is best known for being the original showrunner and head writer of the 2005 revival of the BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who, from 2005 to 2010 and again from 2023.
Prince Tony (Momoh 27 April 1939 – 1 February 2021)
Prince Tony Momoh was a Nigerian journalist and politician who was the Nigerian Minister of Information and Culture during the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. He died at the age of 81 in Abuja.
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