Today in History, June 27th
On June 27, 1950, Truman ordered U.S. air and naval forces to defend South Korea. Plus Joseph Smith's death and Route 66's retirement.
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June 27 is best known for 1950, when President Harry S. Truman ordered U.S. air and naval forces to help South Korea fight off a North Korean invasion. The date also saw Mormon founder Joseph Smith killed by a mob in 1844 and Route 66 decertified as a U.S. highway in 1985.
The big story: Truman sends U.S. forces to Korea (1950)
Two days earlier, at dawn on June 25 Korean time, about 90,000 North Korean troops had crossed the 38th parallel, the line that had split the peninsula since the end of World War II. South Korean forces fell back fast. The UN Security Council quickly demanded a halt and a withdrawal, and the Soviet Union, which was boycotting the council, was not there to veto it. On June 27, Truman announced he was sending American air and naval power to back South Korea and enforce that demand. He also moved the 7th Fleet toward Taiwan and sped up aid to French forces in Vietnam. He never asked Congress for a declaration of war. Within days he agreed to commit ground troops too. The fighting would last until an armistice in July 1953 and leave Korea divided along roughly the same line where it started, a split that has outlasted every leader involved.
More events on June 27
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1829 | James Smithson, whose bequest would found the Smithsonian Institution, died in Genoa, Italy. |
| 1844 | Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois. |
| 1864 | Colorado Territory governor John Evans told peaceful Native Americans to report to Army forts, a step on the road to the Sand Creek Massacre. |
| 1922 | The American Library Association awarded the first Newbery Medal for children’s literature to Hendrik Willem van Loon’s The Story of Mankind. |
| 1941 | British codebreakers helped crack a German Enigma key used on the Eastern Front. |
| 1970 | Chicago held one of the first gay pride marches, marking the first anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in New York. |
| 1976 | The first recorded Ebola epidemic began in Nzara, Sudan, when a factory storekeeper fell ill. |
| 1985 | Highway officials decertified Route 66 and voted to take down its signs, retiring the famous road from the U.S. highway system. |
| 2007 | Gordon Brown became prime minister of the United Kingdom, succeeding Tony Blair after a decade as chancellor of the Exchequer. |
| 2015 | Activist Bree Newsome took down the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House grounds. |
Born on June 27
- 1869: Emma Goldman, anarchist and activist, born in Kovno in the Russian Empire (now Kaunas, Lithuania).
- 1880: Helen Keller, author and educator who was blind and deaf, born in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
- 1966: J.J. Abrams, writer, director and producer behind Lost and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, born in New York City.
Sources
- Truman orders U.S. forces to Korea, History.com
- This Day in History: June 27, History.com
- Gordon Brown, GOV.UK
- Emma Goldman, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Helen Keller, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- J.J. Abrams, Encyclopaedia Britannica
