27 July: On this day in history
What events happened on 27 July in history? We round up the events, births and deaths…
27 July 1361
King Valdemar of Denmark defeated the Gotlanders at the battle of Visby in modern-day Sweden. Mass graves of the dead from the battle were discovered and excavated in the early 20th century.
27 July 1452
Birth inVigevano, Lombardy, of Ludovico Sforza. He was a Duke of Milan and patron of Leonardo da Vinci, commissioning da Vinci’s mural 'The Last Supper'.
27 July 1549
The Spanish Jesuit monk Francis Xavier is the first Christian missionary to reach Japan, although local suspicion forces him to wait for weeks before being allowed ashore.
27 July 1710
An allied army, including a British contingent, defeated the Spanish at Almenara in Catalonia. Humphrey Bland, a young British officer serving with a Huguenot regiment, was wounded. He commanded Cumberland’s cavalry at the battle of Culloden 35 years later.
27 July 1953
The United Nations, North Korea and China signed an armistice to bring about a ceasefire in the Korean War. However no peace treaty was ever signed.
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