September 27
Today is
Google's (official) Birthday,
Nat'l Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, and
World Tourism Day.
Events
1066 – William the Conqueror and his army set sail from the mouth of the River Somme, beginning the Norman conquest of England.
1590 – Pope Urban VII dies 13 days after being chosen as the Pope, making his reign the shortest papacy in history.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: Lancaster, Pennsylvania becomes the capital of the United States, for one day after the Second Continental Congress evacuates Philadelphia to avoid invading British forces.
1908 – The first production of the Ford Model T automobile was built at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan.
1956 – USAF Captain Milburn G. Apt becomes the first man to exceed Mach 3 while flying the Bell X-2. Shortly thereafter, the craft goes out of control and Captain Apt is killed.
1962 – Rachel Carson's book
Silent Spring is published, inspiring an environmental movement and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
1968 – The stage musical Hair
opens at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, where it played 1,998 performances until its closure was forced by the roof collapsing in July 1973. [They brought the house down!]
1983 – Richard Stallman announces the GNU Project to develop a free Unix-like operating system.
1998 – The Google internet search engine retroactively claims this date as its birthday.