Born on this day 27th February
274 Constantine the Great
1807 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1902 John Steinbeck
1930 Joanne Woodward
1932 Dame Elizabeth Taylor
1939 Dame Antoinette Sibley
1941 Lord (Paddy) Ashdown
1950 Rabbi Julia Neuberger
1957 Timothy Spall

Died on this day
2001 Stan Cullis
2002 Spike Milligan KBE

Music

1965 The Seekers topped the chart with their first record, ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’.

1967 Pink Floyd recorded their debut single ‘Arnold Layne’.

1980 Winners at the Grammy awards ceremony included Michael Jackson, Donna Summer and The Eagles.

Sport

1989 Crystal Palace football club threatened the BBC with legal action over a programme on football hooliganism. One scene showed gang members at Crystal Palace’s ground Selhurst Park.

1990 In the eighth round of the Linares international tournament, world chess champion Garry Kasparov lost his first match in 10 months after losing to American Boris Goulko.

1992 England beat the West Indies by a convincing six-wicket margin.

People & Showbiz

1985 The BBC announced to actor Colin Baker that the new series of ‘Dr. Who’ was to be postponed because of a shortage of studio space and production funds. The announcement prompted protests from the Doctor Who Fan Club.

1988 The Duke and Duchess of York arrived in California for a tour.

General Events

1879 The discovery of saccharin was announced by chemists in Baltimore.

1900 The British Labour party was formed, with Ramsay MacDonald its secretary.

1907 The Central Criminal Court, better known as The Old Bailey, opened.

1933 The Reichstag, the German Parliament building in Berlin, was destroyed by fire, started deliberately by the Nazis.

1975 West Berlin’s Christian Democratic leader, Peter Lorenz, was kidnapped at gunpoint by the Baader-Meinhof gang.

1976 The Post Office announced that it was to cease Sunday collections and Saturday afternoon post office openings.

1991 In the Gulf crisis, nine British soldiers died in a ‘friendly fire’ incident after being hit by anti-tank shells launched from an American A10 Thunderbolt. The Prime Minister described the deaths as one of those horrendous things that happens in war.