This Day in History — August 27

Today's Highlight

2007: General elections in Jamaica originally scheduled for today are postponed days before on account of the damage done by Hurricane Dean.

Other Notable Events

1789: French National Assembly adopts Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, proclaiming that "men are born and remain free and equal in rights".

1828: Uruguay is formally proclaimed independent at preliminary peace talks between Brazil and Argentina.

1883: The most powerful volcanic eruption ever recorded blows apart Mount Krakatau in the Sunda Straits, Indonesia. Shock waves travel around the earth and tidal waves kill an estimated 36,000 people.

1928: The Kellog-Briand Pact or Pact of Paris — by which countries vow to solve conflicts by peaceful means — is established. It is eventually signed by most of the world's nations.

1982: Turkish military diplomat Col Atilla Altikat is shot and killed in Ottawa. Justice Commandos against Armenian Genocide take responsibility, saying they were avenging the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915.

1990: The five permanent members of the UN Security Council agree to a plan to end the 11-year-old Cambodian civil war. The plan would take effect only with the approval of the four warring factions.

1991: During session of national legislature, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev appeals to 15 Soviet republics to at least preserve military and economic union.

1994: Algeria closes its border with Morocco in an escalating dispute over the arrest of two Algerians accused of plotting to attack Moroccan banks, security forces and civilians.

2000: A fire in Moscow spreads for 26 hours through a television tower that is the world's second-tallest freestanding structure, killing three people.

2001: Peru's Congress votes to lift the constitutional immunity of former President Alberto Fujimori, clearing the way for prosecutors to charge him with crimes against humanity.

2002: A judge in Tokyo District Court issues a ruling acknowledging Japan engaged in biological warfare in China in World War II and conducted experiments on Chinese prisoners of war.

2007: Under pressure to solve the contract-style killing of journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, Russia's chief prosecutor announces the arrest of 10 suspects, including a Chechen crime boss and five law enforcement officers.

2008: Iraq calls on companies to submit designs to build a giant Ferris wheel in Baghdad -- the latest in a string of lavish proposals painting the capital as a leisure friendly city.

2009: Fighting reportedly breaks out between an ethnic militia and government security forces in northeastern Myanmar, breaching a two-decade ceasefire.

Today's Birthdays

Samuel Goldwyn, US film producer (1882-1974); Lyndon B Johnson, US president (1908-1973); Mother Teresa, Albanian nun (1910-1997); Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Zulu nationalist leader in South Africa (1928-); Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman), US actor (1952-); Sarah Chalke, actress (1976-).

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