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On this day in history - August 27

What Happened On This Day – August 27

  • 2003 World’s Biggest Battery is Plugged in

    The battery, which takes up about 2,000 square metres of space and weighs about 1,300 tonnes is set up to provide emergency electricity to the residents of Fairbanks in Alaska, for about 7 minutes.

  • 2003 Mars approaches closest to the Earth since 57,617 BC

    The next time the two planets will be this close will be in 2287.

  • 1991 Moldova gains its Independence

    The Eastern European country was part of the Soviet Union since August 2, 1940, from parts of Romania and parts of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1991, after the dissolution of the USSR, the country gained its independence.

  • 1985 Military coup in Nigeria

    General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida took over the government after overthrowing Muhammadu Buhari in a bloodless coup.

  • 1962 NASA Launches Mariner 2

    Part of NASA’s Mariner program, the unmanned space probe was the first man-made object to flyby another planet – it encountered Venus on December 14, 1962. The space probe made its last contact with scientists on Earth on January 3, 1963.

Illustration of stork, signifying birth

Births On This Day,
August 27

  • 1976 Mark Webber

    Australian race car driver

  • 1952 Paul Reubens

    American actor

  • 1908 Donald Bradman

    Australian cricketer

  • 1908 Lyndon B. Johnson

    American politician, 36th President of the United States

  • 1770 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

    German philosopher

Illustration of tombstone, signifying death

Deaths On This Day,
August 27

  • 1990 Stevie Ray Vaughan

    American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer

  • 1979 Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma

    British statesman, naval officer

  • 1975 Haile Selassie I

    Ethiopian Emperor

  • 1967 Brian Epstein

    English talent manager

  • 1963 W. E. B. Du Bois

    American sociologist, historian, activist