December 27
Today in America's Present Past
1771 | SCOTUS: Justice William Johnson was born.
1797 | Cleric Charles Hodge was born.
1814 | War of 1812: USS Carolina sunk.
1836 | Texas founder Stephen Austin died.
1845 | Ether was used in childbirth for the first time in Jefferson, Georgia.
1845 | Journalist John O’Sullivan argued for “manifest destiny” and acquiring the Oregon Territory in the New York Morning News.
1862 | Civil War: Battle of Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
1883 | Entrepreneur Cyrus Eaton was born.
1892 | The first black college football game, Biddle versus Livingston College in Salisbury, North Carolina, was held.
1900 | First public “smashing” of a bar by Carrie Nation happened at the Carey Hotel, Wichita, Kansas.
1901 | Actress Marlene Dietrich was born.
1903 | First public rendition of barbershop quartet favorite “Sweet Adeline.”
1910 | Poet Charles Olson was born.
1914 | Inventor Charles Martin Hall died.
1915 | U.S. Steel workers in Ohio harmed U.S. war preparations by striking for three weeks.
1917 | Saxophonist Buddy Boudreaux was born.
1919 | Pilot Charles Sweeney was born.
1926 | Larkin Square, Brooklyn, was named after the first U.S. Jewish soldier to die in WWI.
1930 | Journalist Meg Greenfield was born.
1932 | Radio City Music Hall opened inside Rockefeller Center, NYC.
1933 | Novelist Louis Bromfield was born.
1937 | Civil Rights: Mae West was banned from the radio after performing the skit “Adam & Eve.”
1938 | Author Zona Gale died.
1939 | Painter Rinaldo Cuneo died.
1942 | Inventor of volleyball William Morgan died.
1943 | Journalist Corrine “Cokie” Roberts was born.
1945 | The U.S. joined 28 other nations to launch the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
1947 | TV: “Howdy Doody” debuted.
1955 | Journalist Barbara Olson was born.
1964 | TV: “The Supremes” debuted on the Ed Sullivan Show.
1968 | Apollo 8 returned to Earth, the first crewed orbital moon mission.
1973 | Actor Wilson Cruz was born.
1974 | Author Amy Vanderbilt died.
1981 | Entertainer Hoagy Carmichael died.
1999 | Author Michael McDowell died.
2002 | Actor and Director George Roy Hill died.
2012 | General Norman Schwarzkopf died.
2016 | Actress Carrie Fischer died.
2024 | Journalist Greg Gumbel died.