This Day in History: Jan. 27

Portrait of Apollo 1 astronauts (L-R) Edward H White, Virgil I Grissom And Roger Chaffee, 1967. Printed following their death in a fire during training, January 27th 1967. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

On this day, Jan. 27 …

1967: Astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee die in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft.

Also on this day:

  • 1756: Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is born in Salzburg, Austria.
  • 1832: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who would write “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” under the pen name Lewis Carroll, is born in Cheshire, England.
  • 1880: Thomas Edison receives a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
  • 1943: Some 50 bombers strike Wilhelmshaven in the first all-American air raid against Germany during World War II.
  • 1945: During World War II, Soviet troops liberate the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
  • 1951: An era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert begins as an Air Force plane drops a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flat.
  • 1967: More than 60 nations sign a treaty banning the deploying of nuclear weapons in outer space.
  • 1973: The Vietnam peace accords are signed in Paris.
  • 1977: The Vatican issues a declaration reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on female priests.
  • 1984: Michael Jackson suffers serious burns to his scalp when pyrotechnics set his hair on fire during the filming of a Pepsi-Cola TV commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
  • 1991: Super Bowl XXV: The New York Giants beat Buffalo Bills, 20-19 at Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Fla.
  • 1998: First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, on NBC’s “Today” show, charges the sexual misconduct allegations against her husband, President Bill Clinton, are the work of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
  • 2014: Folk singer and activist Pete Seeger, 94, dies in New York.

  • 2018: Casino mogul Steve Wynn resigns as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee amid allegations of sexual harassment and assault.
  • 2018: Comic strip artist Mort Walker, a World War II veteran who satirized the Army with the antics of the lazy private “Beetle Bailey,” dies in Connecticut at age 94.
     

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