Today in History, May 27th
On May 27, 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrians. Plus St. Petersburg's founding and the sinking of the Bismarck.
Published
May 27 is best known for 1937, when the Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrians in San Francisco. The date also saw Peter the Great found St. Petersburg in 1703 and the Royal Navy sink the German battleship Bismarck in 1941.
The big story: The Golden Gate Bridge opens (1937)
People had talked about bridging the Golden Gate since 1872, and plenty of them said it couldn’t be done. The strait at the mouth of San Francisco Bay is windy, foggy and deep. Engineer Joseph Strauss sketched a design in 1921 and was named chief engineer in 1929. A year later, voters in the bridge district backed a $35 million bond by a 3-to-1 margin, putting up homes, farms and businesses as collateral in the middle of the Depression. Work began on January 5, 1933. Crews blasted rock 65 feet underwater to anchor foundations meant to ride out earthquakes, and architect Irving Morrow gave the towers their Art Deco look and “international orange” paint. Eleven men died building it. On May 27, 1937, the bridge opened for “Pedestrian Day,” and some 200,000 people walked across. Cars got their turn the next day. Its 4,200-foot span held the record until New York’s Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened in 1964.
More events on May 27
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1703 | Czar Peter I founded St. Petersburg on the Baltic, a city he made Russia’s new capital and its window on Europe. |
| 1905 | The Battle of Tsushima began. Japan’s navy under Admiral Heihachiro Togo sank or captured more than 30 Russian ships, all but ending the Russo-Japanese War. |
| 1939 | The liner St. Louis, carrying 937 refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, almost all Jewish, reached Havana. Cuba let only about 28 passengers ashore, and the ship was later turned away by the U.S. and Canada too. |
| 1941 | The Royal Navy sank the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic, three days after it destroyed HMS Hood. Only 115 of its 2,221 crewmen survived. |
| 1941 | In a radio address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed an unlimited national emergency in response to the Nazi threat, about seven months before Pearl Harbor. |
| 1986 | Engineer Lonnie Johnson received a patent for a “Squirt Gun,” the design that became the Super Soaker. |
| 1994 | Novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia, two decades after the Soviet Union expelled him over The Gulag Archipelago. |
| 2016 | President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke together at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. |
Born on May 27
- 1819: Julia Ward Howe, author of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” born in New York City.
- 1907: Rachel Carson, biologist and author of Silent Spring, born in Springdale, Pennsylvania.
- 1911: Hubert Humphrey, U.S. senator and 38th vice president, born in Wallace, South Dakota.
- 1923: Henry Kissinger, national security adviser and secretary of state under Nixon and Ford, born in Fürth, Germany.
Sources
- Golden Gate Bridge opens, History.com
- This Day in History: May 27, History.com
- The Battle of Tsushima Strait, History.com
- Ship carrying Jewish refugees turned away in Cuba, History.com
- Bismarck sunk by Royal Navy, History.com
- Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Abe of Japan at Hiroshima Peace Memorial, The White House (archived)
- Julia Ward Howe, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Rachel Carson, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Henry Kissinger, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Hubert Humphrey, Encyclopaedia Britannica
