On March 27, 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sighted Florida.
In 1625 Charles I became king of England after the death of James I.
In 1836 the first Mormon temple, in Kirtland, Ohio, was dedicated.
In 1884 the first long-distance telephone call was made, between Boston and New York City.
In 1886 architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was born in Aachen, Germany.
In 1902 the Chicago Daily News became the first entity to refer to the “Cubs.”
In 1912 First Lady Helen Taft planted the first Japanese cherry trees in Washington.
In 1924 jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan was born in Newark, N.J.
In 1945 Gen. Dwight Eisenhower declared that German military forces on the Western front had been defeated.
In 1958 Nikita Khrushchev became Soviet premier in addition to first secretary of the Communist Party.
In 1964 Alaska was rocked by an earthquake that killed 114 people.
In 1968 Yuri Gagarin, 34, the Soviet cosmonaut who flew the world’s first manned space mission, was killed when his training plane crashed.
In 1973 “The Godfather” won the Academy Award for best movie of 1972, but its star, Marlon Brando, refused to accept his Oscar for best actor. (The award for best actress went to Liza Minnelli for `Cabaret.”)
In 1977, 582 people died when two jumbo jets collided on a runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
In 1979 the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries decided to raise crude oil prices by 9 percent.
In 1980, 137 workers died when a oil platform in the North Sea capsized during a storm.
In 1994 Ukraine held its first parliamentary elections since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 1995 former President Jimmy Carter announced he had brokered a two-month cease-fire between Sudan’s Islamic government and rebels.
Also, “Forrest Gump” won six Academy Awards, including best picture and a second consecutive best actor Oscar for Tom Hanks. Jessica Lange won best actress for “Blue Sky.”
In 1996 an Israeli court convicted Yigal Amir of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination and sentenced him to life in prison.
In 1997 Dexter King, son of Martin Luther King Jr., met with James Earl Ray, the man imprisoned for the assassination of the civil rights leader. Ray denied having anything to do with the shooting, to which King replied, “I believe you.”
In 1998 the FDA approved the anti-impotence drug Viagra.
In 2000 the Supreme Court ruled the federal government could deny food stamps and other welfare benefits to people who live permanently in the United States but are not citizens.
In 2002 filmmaker Billy Wilder (“Some Like It Hot,” “Sunset Boulevard”) died at 95 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Also, actor Dudley Moore died at 66 in Plainfield, N.J.
In 2003 Serbian police killed two major suspects in the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Also, playwright Paul Zindel died in New York at 66.
In 2005, in an Internet interview with Jesse Jackson, Michael Jackson declared he was `completely innocent” of child molestation charges and said he was the victim of a conspiracy.
In 2006 Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified at his federal trial that he was supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House. Also, Lyn Nofziger, President Ronald Reagan’s political adviser, died at 81 in Falls Church, Va.
