Browse Historical Events by Day: What Happened on October 27th?

The Alhambra Decree is issued by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, ordering the expulsion of Jews from the country.

The Treaty of Weissenburg is signed, ending the War of the Jülich Succession between Spain and the Dutch Republic.

Quakers William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson are hanged in Boston by the Puritans. Mary Dyer was also scheduled to be hanged. However, her life was spared by a last minute reprieve. The day after her reprieve, Mary wrote to the General Court refusing to accept her pardon's terms. While the General Court attempted to soften the terms, Mary left for Rhode Island only to return in the spring of 1660. She was resolute; either the authorities would change their laws or they would need to hang a woman. She was publicly hanged on June 1, 1660. More

The Federalist Papers. The first in a series of eighty-five essays by “Publius,” the pen name of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, appeared in the Independent Journal, a New York newspaper. Publius urged New Yorkers to support ratification of the Constitution approved by the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787.

Joseph Glidden applies for a patent for a reinforced wire fence that placed the barbs along a wire and then twisted another wire around it to keep the barbs in place, an improvement over Michael Kelly's 1868 invention that "twisted two wires together to form a cable for barbs. Nine patents for improvements to wire fencing were granted by the U.S. Patent Office to American inventors, beginning with Michael Kelly and ending with Joseph Glidden in November 24 1874 when he was 61 years old. By the time of his death in 1906, he was one of the richest men in America. More

The New York City Subway Opens. More

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Independence Day from the UK.

The U.S. prison population in state and federal prisons reaches one million (for the first time in American history. An additional 500,000 prisoners were estimated to be held in local prisons. The United States became second only to Russia in the world for incarceration rates at the time. In 2021, the U.S. had the highest incarceration rate in the world. In 2024, counting all federal, state, local, and tribal systems. Together, the incarcerated population is over 1.9 million people. More

Gunmen storm the Armenian Parliament in Yerevan, resulting in the deaths of the Prime Minister and several members of parliament.

The 2010 North Sumatra earthquake and tsunami hit Indonesia, resulting in significant loss of life and devastation.