Reuters
Following are some of the major events to have occurred on August 27:
1919 - Louis Botha, Boer general, statesman and first prime minister of the Union of South Africa, died aged 56.
1928 - The Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in Paris. Named after U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, it sought to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy.
1975 - Haile Selassie, the deposed emperor of Ethiopia, died in exile aged 83.
1979 - Earl Mountbatten of Burma was killed when a bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army destroyed his boat off Mullaghmore in Ireland's County Sligo. He was 79.
1999 - Dom Helder Camara, former Roman Catholic archbishop and renowned Brazilian human rights crusader, died aged 90.
2000 - A fire in Moscow's Ostankino TV tower, Europe's tallest structure, killed three people and crippled TV broadcasts throughout Russia.
2001 - An Israeli missile attack killed Abu Ali Mustafa, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in the West Bank.
2003 - Mars passed 34.65 million miles (55.76 million km) from Earth, the closest such encounter since the Stone Age.
2003 - Robert Korzeniowski of Poland wins 50km walk in world record time.
2006 - Comair Flight 5191 crashes on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Kentucky bound Atlanta, killing 49 of the 50 people onboard.
2007 - World's first airline for Catholic pilgrims launched by Vatican.
