Saturday April 27th is the 117th day of the Gregorian calendar. There are 248 days left until the end of the year.
Saint of the day: Saint Simeon
April Proverb
April artichoke, May cherry
It happened today
1909 – Sultan Abdul-Hamid II of Türkiye is ousted; his brother Mehmet V (who died a few months after him) took his place. An ally of the Kaiser, he was appointed Generalfeldmarschall of the Kingdom of Prussia on 28 January 1916 and of the German Empire on 1 February 1916.
1960 – Togo gains independence from France.
1961 – Sierra Leone gains independence from the United Kingdom.
1967 – Expo ’67 opens in Montreal (Canada).
1973 – Murder of Vittorio Olivares, a simple employee at the offices of the El Al airline in Via Bissolati, in Rome, killed by a terrorist linked to Black September.
1990 – Palestine: to protest against the invasions of Jewish nationalists in sacred places, the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the churches of Nazareth and Bethlehem and the Mosques of the Rock and al-Aqsa are closed to the public for 24 hours.
1992 – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is born, formed by Serbia and Montenegro after the secession of Slovenia and Croatia.
1997 – Andrew Cunanan kills Jeffrey Trail: it will be the first of five crimes including, the following July, the one in which he murdered the designer Gianni Versace.
1999 – Meja massacre: 375 civilians killed by Serbian troops.
2006 – New York, construction begins on the Freedom Tower, the main building of the city’s new World Trade Center.
2014 – Vatican City, Pope Francis, with a solemn ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, declares John Paul II and John XXIII saints, in the presence of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
2018 – North Korean President Kim Jong-un meets with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, becoming the first North Korean head of state to set foot in South Korea in more than 65 years
Birthdays
Vittorio Cecchi Gori – Italian entrepreneur, politician and film producer, son of the well-known film producer Mario Cecchi Gori (27 April 1942)
Beatrice Ghezzi – Italian journalist (27 April 1969)
Riccardo Iacona – Italian journalist and television presenter (27 April 1957)
Barbara Abbondanza – Italian actress, screenwriter and theater workshop teacher, cinema, theater and television (27 April 1971)
