Today is Friday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2017. There are 338 days left in the year.
Today's Highlights in History:
On Jan. 27, 1967, astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft. More than 60 nations signed a treaty banning the deploying of nuclear weapons in outer space.
On this date:
In 1756, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria.
In 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
In 1901, opera composer Giuseppe Verdi died in Milan, Italy, at age 87.
In 1913, the musical play "The Isle O' Dreams," featuring the song "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" by Ernest R. Ball, Chauncey Olcott and George Graff Jr., opened in New York.
In 1944, during World War II, the Soviet Union announced the complete end of the deadly German siege of Leningrad, which had lasted for more than two years.
In 1945, during World War II, Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
In 1951, an era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flat.
In 1973, the Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.
In 1977, the Vatican issued a declaration reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church's ban on female priests.
In 1984, singer Michael Jackson suffered serious burns to his scalp when pyrotechnics set his hair on fire during the filming of a Pepsi-Cola TV commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
In 1998, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, on NBC's "Today" show, charged the sexual misconduct allegations against her husband, President Bill Clinton, were the work of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
In 2001, 10 people were killed when a plane bringing people home from Oklahoma State University's basketball game against Colorado crashed in a field outside Denver.
