Today is Tuesday, Dec. 27, the 361st day of 2011. There are four days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On Dec. 27, 1968, Apollo 8 and its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.
On this date:
In 1831, naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a round-the-world voyage aboard the HMS Beagle.
In 1904, James Barrie’s play, “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” opened at the Duke of York’s Theater in London.
In 1927, the musical play “Show Boat,” with music by Jerome Kern and libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II, opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York.
In 1932, Radio City Music Hall opened in New York City.
In 1945, 28 nations signed an agreement creating the World Bank.
In 1970, the musical play “Hello, Dolly!” closed on Broadway after a run of 2,844 performances.
In 1979, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown and executed, was replaced by Babrak Karmal.
In 1981, composer and bandleader Hoagy Carmichael (“Stardust”) died in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at age 82.
In 1985, American naturalist Dian Fossey, 53, who had studied gorillas in the wild in Rwanda, was found hacked to death.
In 2007, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan by an attacker who shot her after a campaign rally and then blew himself up.
One year ago: A Russian court found imprisoned oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty of stealing nearly $30 billion in oil from his company, Yukos. (His supporters have charged that Khodorkovsky’s prosecution was politically motivated.) Economist and former government official.
Associated Press
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