April 27

• April 27, 1296
  England's King Edward I defeats the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar and deposes King John Balliol triggering Wars of Scottish Independence
• April 27, 1429
  Joan of Arc and a small army set out for Orleans, besieged by the English since October 1428
• April 27, 1521
  Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan is hit by a poisoned arrow while fighting with natives in the Philippine islands, and dies
• April 27, 1522
  Charles V and Pope Adrianus VI beat France at Battle of Bicocca
• April 27, 1565
  Miguel Lopez de Legazpi establishes the city of Cebu, the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines, starting a period of Spanish colonization of East Indies, that would last over three hundred years
• April 27, 1650
  James Graham, a Scottish nobleman and soldier, is defeated during Wars of the Three Kingdoms
• April 27, 1682
  A rebellion by Streltsy, the units of Russian guardsmen, triggered by the death of Feodor III of Russia, makes Peter the Great second tsar after Ivan V being proclaimed as the first tsar with Sophia acting as a regent for them both
• April 27, 1865
  The steamer Sultana catches fire and burns after one of its boilers exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, killing more than 1,800 paroled Union prisoners on their way home
• April 27, 1870
  Heinrich Schliemann, a German archeologist, starts an archaeological excavator of Troy, an ancient city situated on the summit of the mound of Hissarlik in northwest Anatolia
• April 27, 1909
  Sultan Abdul Hamid II of Turkey is overthrown and is succeeded by his brother Mehmed V
• April 27, 1950
  South Africa passes Group Areas Act segregating races
• April 27, 1961
  Sierra Leone declares independence from United Kingdom
• April 27, 1963
  Cuban premier Fidel Castro arrives in Moscow for the first time
• April 27, 1978
  Afghanistan President Daoud Khan is killed and Nur Mohammed Taraki succeeds him during Saur Revolution, marking beginning of long Afghan Civil War
• April 27, 1989
  Major demonstration for democratic reforms occurs in Beijing's Tiananmen square, China
• April 27, 2005
  Facing international pressure after demonstrations in Lebanon, Syria withdraws the last of its 14,000 troop military garrison in Lebanon, ending its 29 year military domination of that country