What happened on April 27 ?

630 - King Ardashir III of Persia

1404 - Philip II, Duke of Burgundy (b. 1342)

1521 - Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese explorer (b. 1480)

1530 - Jacopo Sannazaro, Italian poet (b. 1458)

1599 - Maeda Toshiie, Japanese general (b. 1538)

1605 - Pope Leo XI (b. 1535)

1613 - Robert Abercromby, Scottish Jesuit (b. 1532)

1625 - Mori Terumoto, Japanese warrior (b. 1553)

1656 - Jan van Goyen, Dutch painter (b. 1596)

1694 - John George IV, Elector of Saxony (b. 1668)

1695 - John Trenchard, English statesman (b. 1640)

1702 - Jean Bart, French admiral (b. 1651)

1782 - William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot, English politician (b. 1710)

1813 - Zebulon Pike, American frontiersman and explorer (b. 1779)

1882 - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist (b. 1803)

1915 - Alexander Scriabin, Russian composer (b. 1872)

1921 - Arthur Mold, English cricketer (b. 1863)

1932 - Hart Crane, American writer (suicide) (b. 1899)

1936 - Karl Pearson, English statistician (b. 1857)

1952 - Guido Castelnuovo, Italian mathematician (b. 1865)

1965 - Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (b. 1908)

1970 - Arthur Shields, Irish actor (b. 1896)

1972 - Kwame Nkrumah, leader of Ghana (b. 1909)

1977 - Stanley Adams, American actor (b. 1915)

1992 - Olivier Messiaen, French composer (b. 1908)

1995 - Willem Frederik Hermans, Dutch writer (b. 1921)

1996 - William Colby, American director of the Central Intelligence Agency (b. 1920)

1998 - Carlos Castaneda, Peruvian-born writer (b. 1925)

1999 - Al Hirt, American trumpeter (b. 1922)

2000 - Vicki Sue Robinson, American singer (b. 1954)

2002 - George Alec Effinger, American author (b. 1947)

2002 - Ruth Handler, American toy manufacturer (b. 1916)

2002 - Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, Swiss industrialist and art collector (b. 1921)