Born on this day 27th December
1822 Louis Pasteur
1901 Irene Handl
1901 Marlene Dietrich
1931 Scotty Moore
1944 Mick Jones
1946 Janet Street-Porter
1948 Gerard Depardieu
1974 Vanessa Paradis
1952 David Knopfler

Music
1963 The Animals made their radio debut on ‘Saturday Club’
1967 The Beatles held Nos 1 and 2 with ‘Hello Goodbye’ and ‘The Magical Mystery Tour’.
1980 St. Winifred’s Choir reached No.1 in the UK with the clasc ‘There’s Noone Quite Like Grandma’.

General Events

1831 HMS Beagle set out on its famous scientific voyage around the world with Charles Darwin on board. It was during the voyage that Darwin wrote ‘Origin of the Species’.
1918 For the first time a British sovereign welcomed an American President to Britain. King George V and Queen Mary met President and Mrs Wilson.
1927 Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party.
1975 The Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay acts came into force in Britain, making it an offence to discriminate in employment, training and education on grounds of sex.
1996 In Moscow, Andrei Maslich who was on death row for cannibalism was sentenced to death a scond time after attemptingto eat his cellmate while awaiting news of a possible presidential pardon .