Timeline January 1927

Events in January 1927 10

• 1840 – 1927 Charlotte of Belgium (1840-1927) Died 19 January 1927, aged 86 Charlotte of Belgium was Empress of Mexico as the wife of Maximilian I. She suffered a mental breakdown in 1866 and lived in seclusion in Belgium for six decades after his execution.
• 1855 – 1927 Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1927) Died 9 January 1927, aged 71 Houston Stewart Chamberlain was a British-born writer who settled in Germany. His racialist book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century strongly influenced pan-German and Nazi ideology.
• 1927 Australian Open 1927 Men: Gerald Patterson · Women: Esna Boyd
• 1927 British Broadcasting Corporation established BBC becomes a public corporation under royal charter The privately owned British Broadcasting Company was replaced by the British Broadcasting Corporation, a public body created by royal charter. John Reith became its first director-general. The charter set up the model of public service broadcasting funded by a licence fee.
• 1927 Harlem Globetrotters play first game Basketball touring team debuts in Illinois Abe Saperstein's touring team, later called the Harlem Globetrotters, played its first road game in Hinckley, Illinois. The team was made up of African American players from Chicago. It went on to become a world-famous exhibition act.
• 1927 Transatlantic telephone service opens First commercial calls between New York and London AT&T and the British General Post Office opened a commercial radiotelephone service between New York and London. A three-minute call initially cost 75 dollars. It was the first regular voice link across the Atlantic.
• 1927 Metropolis premieres Fritz Lang's science-fiction epic opens in Berlin Fritz Lang's Metropolis premiered at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin. The silent film shows a futuristic city divided between rich planners and underground workers. It was one of the most expensive films of its time and became a founding work of science-fiction cinema.
• 1927 – 2019 Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) Died 5 April 2019, aged 92 Sydney Brenner was a South African-born biologist who helped decipher the genetic code and pioneered the use of the roundworm C. elegans as a model organism in developmental biology. He shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work. He died in Singapore.
• 1927 – 2008 Eartha Kitt (1927-2008) Died 25 December 2008, aged 81 American singer and actress known for her distinctive purring vocal style, hit song "Santa Baby," and portrayal of Catwoman in the Batman television series. Her career spanned seven decades on stage, screen and recordings.
• 1927 – 1986 Olof Palme (1927-1986) Died 28 February 1986, aged 59 Swedish prime minister and Social Democratic leader, shot dead while walking home from a cinema in Stockholm without bodyguards. His assassination shocked Sweden, where street crime against senior politicians was almost unheard of. The killing was never conclusively solved despite decades of investigation.