September 27

1066 – William, Duke of Normandy and his army set sail from the Somme river, headed towards England.

1529 – The 1st Siege of Vienna begins when Suleiman I attacks the city.

1669 – The Venetians surrender the fortress of Candia to the Ottomans,  ending a 21 year long siege.

1722 – Samuel Adams is born in Boston.

1777 – After evacuating Philadelphia from the British occupation, the U.S. government selects Lancaster, Pennsylvania as the capital of the United States for one day before continuing on to York, Pennsylvania

1822 – Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion officially informs the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in France that he has deciphered the Rosetta Stone.

1854 – The U.S. Collins Line steamship SS Arctic collides with the French steamer Vesta off the coast of Newfoundland and sinks, taking down with it 300 of the 400 passengers and crew on board.

1903 – The Southern Railway mail train number 97, officially known as the Fast Mail , while en route from Monroe, Virginia, to Spencer, North Carolina, derails at the Stillhouse Trestle near Danville, Virginia, killing 11 crew on board and injuring 7 others.

1908 – Production of the Model T automobile begins at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit.

1940 – The Tripartite Pact is signed in Berlin by Germany, Japan and Italy forming the Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis.

1941 – The first Liberty ship, the SS Patrick Henry is launched at the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland

1942 – The last day of the Matanikau action on Guadalcanal ends as U.S. Marines successfully retire from an attempted Japanese encirclement

1956 – Shortly after exceeding Mach 3 for the 1st time in a Bell X-2 aircraft, USAF Captain Milburn Apt is killed when the craft goes out of control and his escape module crashes due to a parachute failure.

1962 – The Yemen Arab Republic is established.

1973 – Texas International Airlines Flight 655, a Convair 600, en route from Memphis to Dallas, crashes into the Black Fork Mountain Wilderness near Mena, Arkansas, killing all 11 passengers and crew on board.

1996 – The Battle of Kabul, the last battle of the 1992-1996 Afghan civil war, ends in a Taliban victory, establishing the 1st Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which will only last until 2001.

1998 – The Google internet search engine claims this date as its origin.

2001 – In the city of Zug, Switzerland’s parliament, a gunman who believed himself subject to unfair treatment by the government, shoots 18 politicians of the city government and some local journalists, killing 14 and then uses a bomb to commit suicide.

2012 – In Minneapolis, an employee in the process of being fired from Accent Signage Systems, shoots 8 people there, killing 4 before committing suicide. 2 of the wounded later succumbing to their injuries.