THE DAY IN HISTORY · DECEMBER 27

December 27 in history

What happened on December 27: 2 moments from the Maps of History atlases, in 1938 and 1979, each linked to the map that shows it.

1938 — Vladivostok transit camp

27 Dec 1938 — Prisoners at the Vtoraya Rechka transit camp waited for ships bound for Kolyma. The poet Osip Mandelstam died there, probably of typhus, after hunger and cold had weakened him. He had been arrested for a second time months earlier; four years before, a poem mocking Stalin had first sent him into exile.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE SOVIET UNION UNDER STALIN MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

1979 — Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

24–27 Dec 1979 — As Soviet airborne divisions land in Kabul, Soviet special forces kill the Afghan president in his palace. The occupation that follows will last nine years and hollow out the Soviet state.

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