What happened on August 27 ?

542 - Saint Caesarius of Arles

1312 - Arthur II, Duke of Brittany (b. 1262)

1394 - Chokei, Emperor of Japan (b. 1343)

1450 - Reginald West, 6th Baron De La Warr, English politician (b. 1395)

1521 - Josquin Des Prez, Flemish composer

1545 - Piotr Gamrat, Polish Catholic archbishop (b. 1487)

1572 - Claude Goudimel, French composer

1577 - Titian, Italian artist

1590 - Pope Sixtus V (b. 1521)

1635 - Félix Lope de Vega, Spanish poet and playwright (b. 1562)

1664 - Francisco Zurbarán, Spanish painter (b. 1598)

1748 - James Thomson, Scottish poet (b. 1700)

1773 - Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, Prussian general (b. 1721)

1875 - William Chapman Ralston, American banker (b. 1826)

1909 - Emil Christian Hansen, Danish fermentation physiologist (b. 1842)

1929 - Herman Poto?nik Noordung, Slovenian rocket scientist (b. 1892)

1931 - Frank Harris, Irish author and editor (b. 1856)

1931 - Francis Marion Smith, American borax magnate (b. 1846)

1944 - Georg von Boeselager, German nobleman (b. 1915)

1948 - Charles Evans Hughes, U.S. Supreme Court justice (b. 1862)

1958 - Ernest Lawrence, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)

1963 - Garrett Morgan, American inventor (b. 1877)

1963 - W.E.B. DuBois, American civil rights activist and scholar (b. 1868)

1964 - Gracie Allen, American actress and comedienne

1965 - Le Corbusier, Swiss architect (b. 1887)

1967 - Brian Epstein, English manager of The Beatles (b. 1934)

1968 - Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent (b. 1906)

1969 - Ivy Compton-Burnett, English novelist (b. 1884)

1969 - Erika Mann, German writer and daughter of Thomas Mann (b. 1905)

1971 - Bennett Cerf, American publisher and television personality (b. 1898)

1975 - Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia (b. 1892)

1976 - Mukesh, Indian playback singer (b. 1923)

1979 - Earl Mountbatten, British admiral and statesman (assassinated) (b. 1900)

1980 - Douglas Kenney, American humorist (b. 1947)

1988 - William Sargant, British psychiatrist (b. 1907)

1990 - Stevie Ray Vaughan, American guitarist (b. 1954)

1997 - Brandon Tartikoff, American television producer (b. 1949)

2002 - Richard Ricci, American handyman wrongly suspected of being a kidnapper in the Elizabeth Smart case (b. 1953)

2003 - Pierre Poujade, French politician (b. 1920)

2004 - Willie Crawford, baseball player (b. 1946)

2005 - Seán Purcell, Gaelic Footballer (b. 1929)