Tornadoes kill 25 in United States
1991 - Tornadoes ripped across the midwest states of Kansas and Oklahoma, killing at least 25 people and flattening hundreds of homes, authorities said. The twisters blew across a wide swath of the American heartland, chasing lawmakers from the Kansas state capital and blowing apart a hospital wing at a US Air Force base elsewhere. Hardest hit was Andover, a Kansas town of 5,000, where 16 people were killed. Most of the dead in Andover were residents of the Golden Spur caravan park, a 400-trailer park on the southeast side of the town. It was levelled. Rescuers searched the rubble of the trailer park for more bodies. Dozens of people shouted out the names of missing relatives, but authorities said they did not have a figure for the number of missing.
April 27
1773 - The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, giving the East Indian Company a monopoly on the American tea trade.
1813 - French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte wins his last great battle at Dresden against Austrian, Prussian and Russian forces.
1865 - Steamer Sultana explodes on the Mississippi river killing more than 1,400 people.
1909 - Sultan of Turkey Abdul Hamid II is overthrown.
1941 - German troops occupy Athens in Greece.
1961 - Sierra Leone declares independence from the United Kingdom.
1972 - Apollo 16 returns to Earth after a manned voyage to the moon.
1976 - Arab Monetary Fund is established in Abu Dhabi
1977 - Bloody riots rock Soweto, South Africa.
1978 - Afghan President Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan is overthrown and murdered in a coup.
1981 - Xerox introduces the first computer with a mouse and a point-and-click interface.
1992 - The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is proclaimed in Belgrade by the Republic of Serbia and its lone ally, Montenegro.
1999 - US Air Force Space Command announces that the Global Positioning System satellite array is fully operational.
2005 - The Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France.
2006 - Construction begins on the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.
2009 - Fujairah government declares Wadi Wurayah as the first Mountain Protected Area.
2010 - Al Wasl makes history as they become the fourth UAE football club to win the GCC Clubs Championship.
