Today is Friday, June 27, the 178th day of 2014. There are 187 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1697 - Elector Augustus of Saxony is named King of Poland, succeeding John III.
1801 - Cairo surrenders to a British force.
1844 - Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, is shot dead by a mob in Carthage, Illinois.
1857 - Massacre of Cawnpore, India, where British soldiers and male residents are executed after promise of safe conduct by the Indians.
1929 - Kemal Ataturk suppresses communist propaganda in Turkey.
1932 - A constitution is proclaimed in Siam — now Thailand.
1940 - Soviet Union invades Romania during World War II after King Carol refuses to cede Bessarabia and Bukovina.
1943 - U.S. bombers attack German-occupied Athens in World War II.
1944 - U.S. forces take critical port of Cherbourg, France, in World War II, allowing the expansion from Normandy beachhead.
1946 - Foreign Ministers of Britain, United States, Soviet Union and France transfer Dodecanese Islands from Italy to Greece, and areas of northern Italy to France.
1950 - U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie urges members of United Nations to assist South Korea in repelling North Korean attacks; U.S. President Harry S. Truman orders U.S. Air Force and Navy into Korean conflict.
1967 - Police clash with the patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. The incident becomes a focal point for gay rights advocates.
1972 - Northern Ireland enjoys first day of peace in almost three years as Irish Republican Army begins ceasefire.
1977 — French Somaliland becomes Africa's 49th independent state, the Republic of Djibouti.
1988 - Pope John Paul II, on a visit to Austria, gives a warm greeting to President Kurt Waldheim, under attack for alleged complicity in Nazi war crimes.
1989 - More people put on trial in China for taking part in rioting during suppression of nation's democracy movement.
1990 - Contra commanders surrender their weapons to Nicaraguan President Violetta Barrios de Chamorro in ceremony marking the end of the country's civil war.
1992 - Crown Prince Alexander, the heir to the Yugoslav throne, receives an emotional welcome upon his return, hopeful of re-establishing the monarchy.
1993 - United States fires 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iraqi intelligence compound in Baghdad.
1994 - Freezing temperatures cover large areas of Brazil's coffee-growing regions causing losses of nearly a quarter of next year's crop.
1995 - The Atlantis space shuttle blasts into orbit with a U.S.-Russian crew of seven on the first shuttle-docking mission with Russia's space station Mir.
1996 - U.S. President Bill Clinton and other world leaders at their annual G-7 summit in Lyon, France, pledge to combat international terrorism in the aftermath of a truck bomb that killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia.
1997 - Tajikistan's president and a rebel leader sign a peace pact ending five years of bitter civil war in the Central Asian nation, but fighting lingers.
1998 - An earthquake rattles Adana in southern Turkey, killing 144 people and injuring about 1,000.
2000 - The United Nations releases a report that says AIDS has killed 19 million people worldwide. The report predicts the disease will wipe out half the teenagers in some African nations, devastating economies and societies.
2001 - The World Court, formally known as the International Court of Justice, rules 14-1, that the United States had violated an international treaty by not halting the execution by the state of Arizona of two German brothers in 1999.
2004 - The premier under ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is detained on suspicion of orchestrating killings during the February rebellion, officials report.
2005 - Kenya's final attempt to prosecute suspects in the deadly 2003 bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa — an attack claimed by al-Qaida — ends with acquittals.
2006 - Inmates riot at a prison in central Venezuela, leaving seven prisoners dead and 11 wounded.
2007 - British Prime Minister Tony Blair resigns after a decade in power, in which he transformed the Labour Party and helped end Northern Ireland's troubles but angered many of his supporters by committing Britain to a bloody, unpopular war in Iraq.
2008 - North Korea destroys the most visible symbol of its nuclear weapons program, blasting the cooling tower at its main atomic reactor into a cloud of smoke as a sign of its commitment to stop making plutonium for atomic bombs.
2009 - NATO and Russia agree to resume military ties in their first high-level meeting since Russia's war with Georgia disrupted their relations 10 months ago.
2010 - The head of the CIA says the U.S. has driven al-Qaida into hiding and undermined its leadership, but is struggling to oust its primary sympathizer, the Taliban, from Afghanistan.
2011 - Thousands of jubilant Libyans dance and cheer in the streets of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi after the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Moammar Gadhafi, accusing him of crimes against humanity for killing civilians who rose up against his rule.
2012 - Italian Premier Mario Montio warns that the European Union faces potential disaster if its leaders do not cooperate and find a way to keep interest down on Italy's national debt.
2013 — South Korean President Park Guen-hye arrives in China for four days of talks with President Xi Jinping aimed at reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Today's Birthdays:
Alexis Bouvard, French astronomer (1767-1843); Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish Nationalist leader (1846-1891); Helen Keller, U.S. blind and deaf scholar (1880-1968); Eduard Spranger, German educator/philosopher (1882-1963); Emma Goldman, Russian labor leader/anarchist (1869-1940); Frank O'Hara, U.S. poet/critic (1926-1966); Bob Keeshan, U.S. actor "Captain Kangaroo" (1927-2004); Tobey Maguire, U.S. actor (1975--); J.J. Abrams, U.S. director/writer/producer (1966--).
Thought For Today:
Genius is eternal patience — Michelangelo, Italian artist (1475-1564).
News Topics: Business, General news, World War II, War and unrest, Prison riots, Territorial disputes, Government and politics, Courts, Events, Prisons, Correctional systems, Law and order, JudiciaryPeople, Places and Companies: Pope John Paul II, Kurt Waldheim, Bill Clinton, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Tony Blair, Muammar Gaddafi, Xi Jinping, Helen Keller, Tobey Maguire, J. J. Abrams, United Kingdom, United States, France, Italy, Turkey, Russia, Central Asia, Middle East, East Africa, Western Europe, Europe, North America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa
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