![BERLIN, GERMANY - JANUARY 19: A portrait of Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by painter Johann Georg Edlinger, showing the composer not long before his death, hangs at the Gemaeldegalerie on January 19, 2006 in Berlin, Germany. Cities across Europe are preparing concerts and exhibitions ahead of the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birthday on January 27. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-56625473-1880x1252.jpg)
![Thomas Edison's incandescent lamp, the first practical light bulb, was developed in 1879. Edison used carbonized bamboo for the filament. (AP Photo)](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/AP_79010101183-979x1254.jpg)
![379631 13: Troops of the U.S. Army 11th Airborne Division watch a plume of radioactive smoke rise November 1, 1951 after a blast at Yucca Flats, Nevada . (Photo by National Archive/Newsmakers)](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-907112-1585x1254.jpg)
![Portrait of Apollo 1 astronauts (L-R) Edward H White, Virgil I Grissom And Roger Chaffee, 1967. Printed following their death in a fire during training, January 27th 1967. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-557712227-1760x1254.jpg)
![January 1973: American Secretary of State, William Rogers (1969 - 1973), signing the Vietnam peace treaty in Paris. Also present to sign are Nguyen Duy Trinh, North Vietnam's minister of foreign affairs, the South Vietnamese foreign minister Tran Van Lam, American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (1973 - 1974) and Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-3203520-1880x1239.jpg)
![25 Jul 1996: Hillary Clinton, left, and Bill Clinton look to one another as the USA women's 4x200m freestyle relay team wins the gold medal at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Mandatory Credit: Simon Bruty /Allsport](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-1527576-1793x1254.jpg)
![BERLIN, GERMANY - JANUARY 19: A portrait of Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by painter Johann Georg Edlinger, showing the composer not long before his death, hangs at the Gemaeldegalerie on January 19, 2006 in Berlin, Germany. Cities across Europe are preparing concerts and exhibitions ahead of the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birthday on January 27. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-56625473-260x174.jpg)
![Thomas Edison's incandescent lamp, the first practical light bulb, was developed in 1879. Edison used carbonized bamboo for the filament. (AP Photo)](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/AP_79010101183-260x174.jpg)
![379631 13: Troops of the U.S. Army 11th Airborne Division watch a plume of radioactive smoke rise November 1, 1951 after a blast at Yucca Flats, Nevada . (Photo by National Archive/Newsmakers)](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-907112-260x174.jpg)
![Portrait of Apollo 1 astronauts (L-R) Edward H White, Virgil I Grissom And Roger Chaffee, 1967. Printed following their death in a fire during training, January 27th 1967. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-557712227-260x174.jpg)
![January 1973: American Secretary of State, William Rogers (1969 - 1973), signing the Vietnam peace treaty in Paris. Also present to sign are Nguyen Duy Trinh, North Vietnam's minister of foreign affairs, the South Vietnamese foreign minister Tran Van Lam, American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (1973 - 1974) and Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-3203520-260x174.jpg)
![25 Jul 1996: Hillary Clinton, left, and Bill Clinton look to one another as the USA women's 4x200m freestyle relay team wins the gold medal at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Mandatory Credit: Simon Bruty /Allsport](https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-1527576-260x174.jpg)
Today is Sunday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2019.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 27, 1967, astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft.
On this date:
In 1756, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria.
In 1832, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who wrote “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” under the pen name Lewis Carroll, was born in Cheshire, England.
In 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
In 1943, some 50 bombers struck Wilhelmshaven in the first all-American air raid against Germany during World War II.
In 1945, during World War II, Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
In 1951, an era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flat.
In 1967, more than 60 nations signed a treaty banning the deploying of nuclear weapons in outer space.
In 1973, the Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.
In 1977, the Vatican issued a declaration reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on female priests.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, greeted the 52 former American hostages released by Iran at the White House.
In 1984, singer Michael Jackson suffered serious burns to his scalp when pyrotechnics set his hair on fire during the filming of a Pepsi-Cola TV commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
In 1998, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, on NBC’s “Today” show, charged the sexual misconduct allegations against her husband, President Bill Clinton, were the work of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
Ten years ago: Saying, “The American people expect action,” President Barack Obama held closed-door meetings with House and Senate Republicans on the eve of a key vote on an economic stimulus package. Ervin Lupoe of Wilmington, Calif., fatally shot himself a day after killing his wife Ana, their 8-year-old daughter and two sets of twins, 2-year-old boys and 5-year-old girls; he’d faxed a note to a TV station saying the couple had just been fired from their hospital jobs. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Updike died in Danvers, Mass. at age 76.
Five years ago: Mexico essentially legalized the country’s growing “self-defense” groups, reaching an agreement with vigilante leaders to incorporate the armed civilian outfits into old and largely forgotten quasi-military units called the Rural Defense Corps. Folk singer and activist Pete Seeger, 94, died in New York.
One year ago: A suicide bombing in the Afghan capital of Kabul killed more than 100 people; the attacker was driving an ambulance full of explosives and raced through a security checkpoint after saying he was transferring a patient to a hospital. Casino mogul Steve Wynn resigned as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee amid allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Comic strip artist Mort Walker, a World War II veteran who satirized the Army with the antics of the lazy private “Beetle Bailey,” died in Connecticut at the age of 94. Caroline Wozniacki won the women’s final at the Australian Open, her first victory in a Grand Slam tournament after 43 tries, beating top-seeded Simona Halep.
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