Celebrations Today – April 27
Holidays and observances
- Christian feast days:
- King’s Day (Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten) (celebrated on April 26 if April 27 falls on a Sunday)
- Day of Russian Parliamentarism (Russia)
- Day of the Uprising Against the Occupying Forces (Slovenia)
- Flag Day (Moldova)
- Freedom Day (South Africa)
- Independence Day (Sierra Leone), celebrates the independence of Sierra Leone from United Kingdom in 1961.
- Independence Day (Togo), celebrates the independence of Togo from France in 1960.
- National Day (Mayotte)
- National Day (Sierra Leone)
- National Veterans’ Day (Finland)
Celebrations Today – USA: April 27
National Babe Ruth Day
National Prime Rib Day
National Tell a Story Day
National Take Our Sons and Daughters to Work Day – Fourth Thursday in April
National Hug a Friend Day
National Hug an Australian Day
National Static Cling Day
World Intellectual Property Day
Today in US History: April 27
Birth of Ulysses S. Grant
I shall on all subjects have a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people. Laws are to govern all alike—those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.Ulysses S. Grant, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1869.
President Ulysses S. Grant, circa 1869-1885,
By Popular Demand: Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present
On April 27, 1822, military leader and U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. A quiet, unassuming, and keenly intelligent man, Grant rose to national prominence as the commanding officer of the Union army during the Civil War. Though trained as a soldier at West Point, Grant never aspired to a military career. Of his early cadet years he wrote: “A military life had no charms for me, and I had not the faintest idea of staying in the army even if I should be graduated, which I did not expect.”1
Yet, he did indeed graduate from West Point in 1843 and went on to learn the practical lessons of warfare during the Mexican War, a conflict he personally opposed but fought with great bravery. When the two-year crisis concluded in 1848, Grant returned to garrison duty and wed his longtime fiancée Julia Dent, the sister of a West Point classmate. Four years into the marriage, the young couple was separated once again by duty when Grant and his regiment were transferred to the Pacific Northwest. Longing for his family and bored with his routine tasks, Grant began drinking—a habit that would haunt him for years to come. A promotion did not alleviate Grant’s woes, and in 1854 the thirty-two-year-old captain resigned his commission.
In the spring of 1861, after suffering failed farming and business ventures in Missouri and Illinois, Grant returned to the army as a colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Within months, he was promoted to brigadier general and placed in charge of 20,000 Union troops. Largely through the successive victories of the troops under his command, Grant rose steadily in rank. After the Union’s November 1863 victory at Chattanooga, President Abraham Lincoln asked Congress to revive the rank of lieutenant general to honor Grant; only George Washington and Winfield Scott had previously held the esteemed rank. Grant received his commission in March 1864, just over a year before Confederate leader Robert E. Lee surrendered to him at Appomattox, Virginia.
Grant Writing His Memoirs, Mount McGregor, New York,
June 27, 1885.
By Popular Demand: Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present
Just as Grant had drifted into the military, he drifted into politics. Riding the success of his Civil War triumphs, the Republican Party drafted him as candidate for president in 1868. He won that year’s election by a large electoral vote and repeated his success four years later. Inexperienced in politics, Grant selected his Cabinet without consultation, choosing several inappropriate members who would involve his administration in a series of scandals. While Grant remained uncorrupted, popular sentiment was that he failed as president.
Grant’s post-White House years were a mixture of glory and disappointment. Upon leaving office, Grant, Julia, and their youngest son departed for a worldwide tour, during which Grant was heralded as the victor of the Civil War. Years later, in 1884, the family was reduced to poverty as the result of another failed business venture. That same year, Grant was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer.
Racing against the clock and enduring severe pain, Grant penned his personal memoirs, which he hoped would provide his family with some financial security. Published by Grant’s friend and admirer Mark Twain, the two-volume work enjoyed immediate success, eventually earning the Grant family over $400,000. Grant completed the text just days before his death on July 23, 1885, at Mount McGregor, New York. Grant’s memoir is widely considered the finest military autobiography ever written.
Grant’s Tomb and Riverside Drive, New York City, circa 1909.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
Like Lincoln before him, Ulysses S. Grant was mourned by the nation. Walt Whitman memorialized him with a poem and the city of New York offered its public parks for the placement of his tomb. At the request of the Grant family, the Civil War hero was laid to rest in Riverside Park overlooking the Hudson River. His massive tomb took six years to build and was funded by over 90,000 donors. It was formally dedicated on April 27, 1897, what would have been Grant’s seventy-fifth birthday.
- Search the Today in History Archive on Ulysses Grant to locate more features related to the 18th president of the United States.
- During the presidential election of 1872, supporters of Grant’s opponent, journalist Horace Greeley, accused Grant of slighting black Americans. Coming to the president’s aid was noted orator Frederick Douglass, who prepared an address detailing Grant’s support for African-American liberation and civil rights. Douglass’s speech is just one of the many fascinating documents found in the American Memory collection African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907.
- See the collection Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division’s First 100 Years for Grant’s commission as lieutenant general, signed by Abraham Lincoln on March 10, 1864.
- Search on the term Ulysses S. Grant in the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress to see a number of letters written by, to, and about Grant. See, for example, Grant’s September 21, 1864 telegram to Elihu B. Washburne, granting Lincoln permission to use anything Grant has written to him for political purposes.
- To view photographs of Grant during the Civil War, search on Ulysses Grant in Selected Civil War Photographs. See, for example, Grant examining map held by Gen. George G. Meade during the Wilderness Campaign.
- Today in History includes features on over twenty U.S. presidents, beginning with George Washington. To locate these items, search the Today in History Archive on president.
1. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (N.Y., 1885), I, 38. (Return to text)
Touring with the World Transportation Commission
Here and there the spire of a church or the minarets of a mosque soar above the trees, and in one place the strangely shaped tower of a Buddhist temple shows itself in the background.Description of Colombo, capital of Ceylon, as viewed from the harbor.
Harper’s Weekly, April 27, 1895.
Clock Tower and Street Scene, Colombo, Sri Lanka,
William Henry Jackson, photographer, 1895.
Around the World in the 1890s: Photographs from the World’s Transportation Commission, 1894-1896
On April 27, 1895, the popular periodical Harper’s Weekly carried a story on the World Transportation Commission‘s visit to Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka. The article was part of an illustrated series on the Commission’s worldwide tour, with stories describing the geography, culture, and transportation systems of the countries visited.
The World Transportation Commission was organized by railroad publicist Joseph Gladding Pangborn to gather information about foreign transportation systems, especially railroads, for the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago. In addition to Pangborn, the Commission included a railroad engineer, a graphic artist, and the photographer William Henry Jackson. The American Memory collection Around the World in the 1890s: Photographs from the World’s Transportation Commission, 1894-1896 contains nearly 900 images from the Commission’s three-year odyssey.
Tea Picker in Field, Sri Lanka,
William Henry Jackson, photographer, 1895.
Around the World in the 1890s: Photographs from the World’s Transportation Commission, 1894-1896
These images were reproduced from 584 lantern slides and from 297 silver gelatin prints made from the original film negatives. Lantern slides, which are glass, positive transparencies, are the forerunner of today’s color slides. To make the lantern slides look more realistic, their creators colored them by hand with dyes and paints.
To view more photographs of the tour, select Sri Lanka or another country from the Trip Itinerary, or search the Today in History archive on World Transportation Commission.
Country Studies, a continuing series of books prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, profiles many of the countries featured in Around the World in the 1890s: Photographs from the World’s Transportation Commission, 1894-1896. To find information on a country of your choice, select from a List of Countries, or search across the collection on a country name.
Search on Ceylon in The Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals for articles ranging from elephant hunting to American missions in Ceylon.
Visit Your Local Library
Articles that appeared in Harper’s Weekly concerning the World Transportation Commission’s tour are not available in American Memory. The magazine, however, is available on microfilm or electronic databases in many libraries. Consult a reference librarian at your local library to read more accounts of the tour.
TIP: You can search online for materials in the Library of Congress and many other libraries around the world.
Today in History – April 27-External Links
Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia