Today is Monday, April 27, the 117th day of 2026. There are 248 days until the end of the year.
1521 – The Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain, Fernando Magellan, the leader of the expedition that proved that the Earth is round, was killed by natives on the Philippine island of Mactan. He was the first to examine the southeastern coast of South America, and near Tierra del Fuego he discovered a strait between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, called the Strait of Magellan. After his death, the expedition continued its journey and circumnavigated the planet, returning to Spain in 1522 with only one ship and 18 men – out of the five ships and 270 sailors who set out on the journey in 1519.
1737 – English historian Edward Gibbon was born, whose seven-volume work “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, in which he covered the history of Rome and Rome from the second to the 15th century, is one of the most significant in world historiography.
1791 – American inventor Samuel Finley Breze Morse was born, the constructor of an apparatus that transmits written characters over a distance using electrical impulses. He patented the device in 1837 and called it the telegraph. The first telegraph was put into operation in 1844 on the line Washington – Baltimore. He also compiled an alphabet for telegraphy from dots and dashes, called Morse code.
1820 – English philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer was born, who tried to systematize all areas of experience based on the concepts of development, adaptation and progress and believed that the basic task of philosophy is to discover laws valid for all areas of social and natural reality. Before Charles Darwin, he began to develop evolutionary concepts. He is known for his organic theory of society and the biologization of social phenomena. Works: “System of Synthetic Philosophy”, “Introduction to Sociology Studies”, “Factors of Organic Evolution”, “Classification of Sciences”, “Autobiography”.
1822 – Birth of American general and statesman Julius Simpson Grant, commander-in-chief of the Northern Army in the American Civil War. He was elected president of the USA in 1868 and 1872, but the brilliant military strategist in that position was a toy in the hands of corrupt people who were no match for him.
1830 – South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar, accused of dictatorial ambitions, resigned as president of Colombia.
1830 – Belgrade got street lighting – lanterns with candles.
1909 – The Turkish parliament under the control of the officers, who in 1908 staged a coup called the Young Turk Revolution, overthrew Sultan Abdul Hamid II as the chief representative of feudalism, who was succeeded by Muhammad the Fifth. The coup carried out under the slogan “Ottoman Empire to the Ottomans” did not bring anti-feudal reforms, and the position of Christians worsened, because young Turks as chauvinists accepted Pan-Turkism and even more fiercely Turkified non-Turkish peoples, imposing Islam on them.
1915 – The Russian composer and pianist Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, the forerunner of Expressionism, whose work was based on the theosophical conception of the world, died. Works: compositions for orchestra “Divine Poem”, “Prometheus”, “Poem of Ecstasy”, piano preludes, sonatas, etudes.
1929 – Serbian duke Stepan – Stepa Stepanović, one of the most outstanding military leaders in both the Balkans and in the First World War, died. In the Battle of Cerska in August 1914, the Second Army under his command defeated the Austro-Hungarian troops, for which he received the rank of duke, and on the Thessaloniki front in September 1918, the Second Army, attacking on the main line, in cooperation with the First Army, broke through the enemy’s defenses, then broke through to the Bulgarian border and forced Bulgaria to capitulate. After graduating from the Artillery School in Belgrade, in the Serbian-Turkish wars from 1876 to 1878, he showed great personal courage and skill in command. He also participated in the Serbo-Bulgarian war of 1885, and a few years later he became a professor of history at the Military Academy in Belgrade and assistant chief of the General Staff. He was promoted to the rank of general in 1907 and appointed commander of the Šumadija Division, in 1908 he became the Minister of the Army, then the commander of the Drinska, then the Moravian Division, and from 1911 to 1912 he was again the Minister of the Army. In the First Balkan War, he commanded the Second Army in the Battle of Kumanovo, after which, at the end of 1912 and the beginning of 1913, he participated in the siege and capture of Jedren. In the Second Balkan War, he successfully defended the route along the Nišava valley towards Pirot with the Second Army. At the beginning of the First World War, replacing the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command, Duke Radomir Putnik, he successfully carried out the mobilization and concentration of the Serbian army, and after the Battle of Cer, in September 1914, his Second Army thwarted the Austro-Hungarian Fifth Army from forcing the Drina. Then, in the Battle of Kolubara in the second half of November 1914, the forces under his command fought hard in the Lazarevac area and prevented the Austro-Hungarian troops from attacking the Serbian army from the south and then participated in the December counter-offensive in expelling the Austro-Hungarian army from Serbia. During the retreat of the Serbian army at the end of 1915 and the beginning of 1916, he managed to slow down the advance of the Bulgarian First Army with the Second Army, in cooperation with the Timoč Army.
1937 – Italian revolutionary and theorist of Marxism Antonio Gramsci, founder of the Communist Party of Italy in 1921, died. He edited the newspapers “Il grido del popolo”, “Avanti” and “Ordine nuovo”. Fascists arrested him in 1926 and sentenced him to 20 years in prison in 1928. He was released in 1936, but, tortured by his imprisonment, died soon after. Works: “Historical materialism and the philosophy of Benedet Kroče”, “Intellectuals and the construction of culture”, “Notes on Machiavelli, politics and the modern state”, “Literature and national life”, “Past and present”, “Letters from prison”.
1941 – Athens was occupied by German troops during the Second World War after Greek resistance that lasted 180 days.
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1960 – The independence of the African state of Togo, a former French colony, was declared.
1961 – The independence of Sierra Leone, a former British colony in Africa, was declared.
1972 – The Ghanaian statesman and publicist Kwame Nkrumah, the first prime minister and president of Ghana, a prominent fighter against colonialism and the leader of the non-aligned movement, died. After studying law in the USA and staying in London, where he was the secretary of the Standing Committee for West Africa from 1945 to 1947, he founded the People’s Party in Ghana in 1949. He was soon arrested and in prison he waited for the victory of his party in the elections of 1951. This enabled him to become the president of the government of the Gold Coast in 1952, which gained independence from Great Britain in 1957 under the name of Ghana as the first British colony in Africa south of the Sahara. A republic was proclaimed in 1961 with Nkrumah as president, who in 1964 established authoritarian rule with a one-party system, intending to lead Ghana down the path of “African socialism”. During a visit to Asian countries, he was overthrown by a coup on February 24, 1966, after which he took refuge in Guinea, and died in Bucharest during a visit to Romania. Works: “The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah”, “I Speak of Freedom”, “Africa Must Unite”, “Neocolonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism”, “The Congolese Challenge”, “Voice from Ghana”, “The Big Lie”, “Dark Days of Ghana”, “Handbook of the Revolutionary Struggle”, “The Spectrum of Black Power”.
1978 – In Afghanistan, the government of Mohamed Daud, established in the same way in 1973, was overthrown by a military coup, and after the declaration of the country as a republic on May 1, he was replaced by the first Afghan communist prime minister, Nur Mohamed Taraki. Daud and 30 members of his family were killed, including children and women.
1992 – The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was adopted, based on the decisions of the assemblies of Serbia and Montenegro. Serbia and Montenegro were internationally recognized at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 and 1918, and after six years of war and great sacrifices, they were the headquarters for the gathering of the Yugoslav peoples into one state.
1992 – A Zambian military plane, carrying football representatives of that African country, fell into the Atlantic Ocean near Gabon and none of the 30 people on board survived the accident.
1992 – Russia and 12 other former Soviet republics became members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
1993 – Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia after three decades of civil war and a referendum, in which Eritreans voted for independence.
1993 – Semi-official representatives of China and Taiwan, for the first time since 1949, met in Singapore.
1997 – The longest suspension road-railway bridge in the world was officially opened in Hong Kong, connecting the city with the new airport.
1999 – NATO planes bombed the center of Surdulica, killing at least 20 civilians, including 12 children, and destroying or damaging more than 500 houses. NATO spokesman Jamie Shay said it was “one bomb that missed its target”. That city in the south of Serbia was also attacked 30 days later, when at least 20 people were killed.
2001 – The first meeting of the International Commission for Border Issues between BiH and the FRY was held.
2007 – Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, Russian cellist, composer, conductor and pedagogue, died.
2015 – Police officer Dragan Đurić was killed in a terrorist attack on the police station in Zvornik, Republika Srpska, by Nerdin Ibrić /24/ from the village of Sapna near Zvornik. On that occasion, police officers Željko Gajić and Stevo Milovanović were wounded.
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