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more events on April 27
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1989
Protesting students take over Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.
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1978
The Afghanistan revolution begins.
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1975
Saigon is encircled by North Vietnamese troops.
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1961
The United Kingdom grants Sierra Leone independence.
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1950
South Africa passes the Group Areas Act, formally segregating races.
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1941
The Greek army capitulates to the invading Germans.
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1937
German bombers of the Condor Legion devastate Guernica, Spain.
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1927
Coretta Scott King, civil rights activist, wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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1909
The Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II, is overthrown.
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1904
Cecil Day-Lewis, Irish poet, father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
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1900
Walter Lantz, cartoonist, creator of Woody Woodpecker.
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1865
The Sultana, a steam-powered riverboat, catches fire and burns after one of its boilers explodes. At least 1,238 of the 2,031 passengers–mostly former Union POWs–are killed.
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1863
The Army of the Potomac begins marching on Chancellorsville.
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1861
West Virginia secedes from Virginia after Virginia secedes from the Union.
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President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus.