Today in History - History - December 27th

1927Stalin's faction wins All-Union Congress in USSR, Trotsky expelled

1981Oiler Wayne Gretzky becomes fastest NHLer to get 100 pts (38th game)

1937Bradman scores 246 SA v Queensland, 364 mins, 20 fours

1831HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin departs England for South America

1985Terrorists kill 20 & wound 110 attacking El Al at Rome & Vienna airports, President Reagan blames Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

1983Pope John Paul II pardons man who shot him (Mehmet Ali Agca)

1992Harry Connick Jr is caught with 9mm gun in NY's JFK airport

1956Bill Sharman (Boston) ends NBA free throw streak of 55 games

1999Joe Sakic records his 1,000th career point, an assist against the St. Louis Blues

2002"Chicago", starring Renee Zellweger, Richard Gere, and Catherine Zeta Jones, is released (2002 Best Picture winner)

1571Johannes Kepler, Weil der Stadt, Germany, astronomer (planetary Motion), (d. 1630)

1883Cyrus S. Eaton, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, Canadian-American financier, industrialist and steel magnate (d. 1979)

1822Louis Pasteur, Dole, France, bacteriologist (pasturization), (d. 1895)

1823Mackenzie Bowell, Rickinghall England, 5th Prime Minister of Canada (1894-1896)

1913Elizabeth Smart, Ottawa Ontario, Canadian author (By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept)

1901Marlene Dietrich [Maria Losch], Berlin Germany, singer/actress (Blue Angel), (d. 1992)

1972Actor Billy Dee Williams (35) weds Teruko Nakagami

1925Inventor George Gallup (24) weds Ophelia Smith Miller

2007Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan is assassinated at 54

1923Gustave Eiffel [Alexandre], engineer (Eiffel Tower), dies at 91

1836Stephen Fuller Austin, founder of the US State of Texas, dies at 43

1972Lester B. Pearson, 14th Canadian Prime Minister (Nobel 1957), dies at 75