THE DAY IN HISTORY · OCTOBER 27

October 27 in history

What happened on October 27: 4 moments from the Maps of History atlases, in 1917, 1947, 1949 and 1962, each linked to the map that shows it.

1917 — Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets

25–27 Oct 1917 — The Bolsheviks present their coup to the Second Congress as an accomplished fact. The Mensheviks and Right SRs protest by walking out, leaving the hall, and the revolution, to Lenin. Trotsky consigns the departing delegates to “the dustbin of history.”

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

1947 — Kashmir’s accession to India

26–27 Oct 1947 — Raiders were forty miles away when Maharaja Hari Singh signed Kashmir over to India. Indian troops landed at the airfield at dawn. Whether the signature preceded the landing remains disputed, as does the question the accession opened.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE INDIAN INDEPENDENCE & PARTITION MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

1949 — Battle of Guningtou

25–27 Oct 1949 — About 9,000 PLA troops set out for Kinmen in requisitioned fishing junks, with no naval or air cover. They are destroyed on the beaches, and almost none return. The defeat, followed by the American Seventh Fleet’s patrol of the strait from June 1950, leaves Taiwan and its offshore islands in Nationalist hands to this day.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC UNDER MAO MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

1962 — Soviet submarine B-59

27 Oct 1962 — Depth charges strike around a Soviet submarine that is overheated and out of contact. Its captain orders a nuclear torpedo readied, but flotilla commander Vasili Arkhipov, aboard by chance, refuses his consent. The danger has come close indeed.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE COLD WAR MAP → · THE FULL STORY →