Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 27
August 27: Independence Day for Moldova (1991).
- 1776 – British forces led by William Howe defeated the Continental Army under George Washington at the Battle of Long Island in Brooklyn, New York, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War.
- 1883 – Four enormous explosions from the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa (pictured) generated disastrous tsunamis that destroyed many settlements on Java and Sumatra in Indonesia.
- 1896 – The Anglo-Zanzibar War set the record for the shortest war in recorded history when Zanzibar surrendered less than an hour after the conflict broke out with British forces destroying the Beit al Hukum palace.
- 1928 – Over sixty nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy.
- 1939 – Flown by German test pilot Erich Warsitz, experimental jetplane Heinkel He 178 became the world's first aircraft to fly under turbojet power.
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