On Sept. 27, 1722, patriot Samuel Adams was born in Boston.
In 1854 the first great disaster involving an Atlantic liner occurred when the steamship Arctic sank with 300 people.
In 1928 the U.S. said it intended to recognize China’s Nationalist government in Beijing.
In 1938 the British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth was launched.
In 1939 Warsaw capitulated to the German invasion force after 19 days of resistance near the start of World War II.
In 1942 Glenn Miller and his orchestra performed together for the last time, in Passaic, N.J., before Miller’s entry into the Army. (He would die in December 1944, when his plane vanished over the English Channel.)
In 1954 “Tonight!” with host Steve Allen premiered on NBC.
In 1959 a typhoon battered Japan’s main island, Honshu, killing nearly 5,000 people.
In 1964 the Warren Commission issued a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy.
In 1979 Congress gave final approval to forming the Department of Education, the 13th Cabinet agency in U.S. history.
In 1989 Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc. agreed to a $3.4 billion cash buyout by Sony Corp.
In 1993 retired Gen. James Doolittle died in Pebble Beach, Calif.; he was 96.
In 1994 more than 350 Republican congressional candidates gathered on the U.S. Capitol steps to sign the “Contract with America,” a 10-point platform they pledged to enact if voters sent a GOP majority to the House.
In 1995 the government unveiled its redesigned $100 bill, featuring a larger, off-center portrait of Benjamin Franklin.
In 1996 the Taliban, a band of militant former Islamic seminary students, drove the government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani out of Kabul, Afghanistan, captured the capital and executed former Soviet-appointed leader Najibullah.
In 1998 St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire hit his 69th and 70th home runs of the season to establish a major league record, surpassing Roger Maris’ 38-year-old mark. (The Cubs’ Sammy Sosa finished the season behind him with 66 homers.)
In 1999 Detroit’s Tiger Stadium closed after 87 years after the Tigers beat the Kansas City Royals 8-2.
In 2000, in Sydney, the U.S. Olympic baseball team beat Cuba 4-0 to capture its first baseball gold medal. Venus Williams became only the second player to win Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the Olympics in the same year with her 6-2, 6-4 victory over Elena Dementieva. (The first was Steffi Graf, in 1988.)
In 2002 President George W. Bush said the United Nations should have had a chance to force Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons of mass destruction before the United States acted on its own against Iraq, but told a Republican fundraising event in Denver that action had to come quickly.
In 2003 entertainer Donald O’Connor died in Calabasas, Calif.; he was 78.
In 2004 NBC announced that Conan O’Brien would succeed Jay Leno as host of “The Tonight Show” in 2009.
