February 27th Anniversaries

Santo Domingo.- The ephemeris of the 27th of February, are marked by important historical events and international celebrations that left their mark on world history.

• National Independence Day.
• World NGO Day.
• International Polar Bear Day.
• Argentina: Day the flag is raised for the first time. Creation of the Argentine National Flag.
• Ecuador: Civic Day.

Saints' Day: Saints Leander, Baldomero, Abundius, and Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother.

National: February 27th Anniversaries

• 1767. A Royal Decree orders the expulsion of the Jesuits from all Spanish colonies in America, which led to the extinction of the Jesuit university in the eastern part of the island in the colony.
• 1844. The ex-Spanish colony of the eastern part of the island of Hispaniola declares its independence, separating from the Haitian domination of 22 years. The independence movement was led by Juan Pablo Duarte, Francisco del Rosario Sánchez and Ramón Matías Mella.
• 1845. María Trinidad Sánchez and Andrés Sánchez are shot, aunt and brother of the Father of the Nation Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, as well as the Venezuelan José del Carmen Figueroa, for alleged conspiracy against President Pedro Santana.
• 1854. The Constitution that creates the position of vice president is enacted.
• 1879. The lawyer and politician Cesáreo Guillermo y Bastardo begins his second term as constitutional president of the Republic.
• 1884. The remains of the Father of the Nation Juan Pablo Duarte are brought from Venezuela where they were buried and inhumed in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo.
• 1911. The remains of General Antonio Duvergé are transferred from Higuey to Santo Domingo.
• 1932.  The Dominican Academy of the Language is recognized as a Correspondent of the Spanish Academy of the Language.
• 1933. By order of President Rafael Trujillo, as a tribute to all the Februaryists, the change of name of the so-called “Puerta del Conde”, to that of “Puerta del 27 de Febrero”, is arranged.
• 1938. The dictator Rafael Trujillo expresses before the National Assembly, that he ratified, without vanity, “but with legitimate pride, that I am satisfied with my work”, but he was saddened “not having been able to achieve all that my patriot soul yearns for to forge the homeland with which I dreamed”.
• -Juan Bosch resigns from his position as Head of Information Services of the General Directorate of Statistics of the Dominican Republic.
• 1958. Professor Juan Bosch gave a conference at the Central University of Caracas on the Trujillo dictatorship.
• 1961. The Dominican political leader exiled in Venezuela, Juan Bosch, writes a prophetic letter to the dictator Rafael Trujillo, in which he explained the reasons why he would be executed if he persisted in oppressing the Dominican population.
• 1963. The first democratically elected government is installed after the 30-year dictatorship of the Trujillo regime, presided over by Professor Juan Bosch, leader of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD).
• 1970. The Northeast Regional University Center (CURNE) is created in San Francisco de Macorís.
• 1972. President Joaquín Balaguer announces to the National Assembly the expropriation of vacant lands and the acquisition by the State of the cultivated rice lands that benefit from the irrigation canals built by the Government.
• 1974. The XII Central American and Caribbean Games are inaugurated in the country with the participation of more than 2,000 athletes from 22 countries. The sports facilities and the Olympic Village to house the athletes were built with a budget of over RD$20 million.
• 1980. The headquarters of the Dominican embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, is assaulted and occupied by guerrillas of the M-19 (April 19 Movement), during a diplomatic reception to celebrate the country's national holiday.
• 1987. The statue of Admiral Cristóbal Colón is inaugurated in Santo Domingo, in the square of the same name.
• 2012. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) condemns the Dominican State for the case of Narciso González, considering him "internationally responsible for the forced disappearance" of the professor and social activist on May 26, 1996.
• 2020. Alleging government responsibility for the suspension of the municipal elections on the 16th of the current month, more than 100 legislators, headed by the spokesman for the deputies of the opposition PRM party, Alfredo Pacheco, leave the National Assembly while President Danilo Medina reads his accountability speech to the country.
• 2021. President Luis Abinader announces in his first accountability speech to the nation that his government will build a dividing line between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which will include all the “physical and technological means” to control the illegalities that occur on the border between both countries.
• - The rector of the Pontifical Catholic University Madre y Maestra, priest Alfredo de la Cruz Baldera, reveals that the Molecular Biology Laboratory of the academy is capable of producing the vaccines that are used to combat the coronavirus, but  
• that to carry out that task will depend on the release of the patents. 
• 2022. On the occasion of the celebration of a new anniversary of National Independence, the Executive Branch demands that the Legislative Branch approve the law that allows the Government to recover the assets and money that it alleges have been stolen from the State by previous administrations.

International: February 27th Anniversaries

• 1594. Henry IV, the first Bourbon monarch, is crowned king of France.
• 1811. In the Banda Oriental (present-day Uruguay) a group of revolutionaries decide to undertake the first actions against the Spanish Crown, which will take place the following day with the episode known as the Grito de Asencio.
• 1900: The British Labour Party is founded at the conference of the Socialist Trade Unions of London.
• 1962. The President of Costa Rica, Francisco Orlich, declares that his administration will not recognize the Cuban Government of Fidel Castro, whose relations had been suspended by the previous president, Mario Echando.
• 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson orders the US aviation and artillery to initiate attacks against the military positions of North Vietnam.
• 1989. Dozens of deaths and injuries are recorded during a popular revolt, known as El Caracazo or Sacudón, against the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez, after authorizing the increase in the price of gasoline.
• -In Colombia, the general secretary of the Communist Party, Teófilo Forero Castro, is assassinated in Bogotá, along with his wife and two other people, by hitmen in the service of drug trafficker Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha.
• 1990. Nelson Mandela arrives in Zambia on his first trip abroad since he was released after spending 27 years in prison.
• 1991. The President of the United States, George W. Bush, announces the end of hostilities in the Gulf War and urges Iraq to accept the twelve resolutions of the UN Security Council.
• 1994. Two bombs placed near the altar explode during a mass in a Maronite church in Lebanon. Ten parishioners died and 60 were injured.
• 1995. Mafia boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina and 47 other suspects of being members of the criminal organization are tried on charges of complicity in 48 murders in Sicily.
• 1996. United Nations sanctions against Bosnian Serbs are suspended, after they met the conditions established by the Security Council.
• 2010. An 8.8-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami are recorded off the Chilean coast, causing the death of some 500 people, injuries to several thousand and more than two million affected.
• 2012. In Yemen, Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi assumes the presidency, ending the autocratic government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, which lasted 33 years.
• 2014. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro gives a speech from the Miraflores Palace in which he criticized the press, international artists, and the President of the United States, saying.
• 2015. The Mexican National Security Commission reports the capture of Servando Gómez Martínez (La Tuta), leader of the Los Caballeros Templarios cartel, in an operation carried out in Morelia, the capital of the state of Michoacán, without a single shot being fired.
• 2017. The President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced an increase of US$54,000 million to the defense budget, equivalent to a 10 percent increase.
• 2019. The US President, Donald Trump, attends his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, attracted by the idea of becoming the architect of a possible declaration of peace on the Korean peninsula, a desire that could divert his gaze from the denuclearization objective.
• 2020. The United States and the Taliban sign a historic peace agreement that seeks to end 18 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan and allow US troops to return home after the longest war ever fought by Washington.-The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, invites the business community not to advertise in the "rotten press" that seeks to overthrow him, after the controversy raised by supporting an act against the Legislative and Judicial Powers convened for March 15, which he denies being encouraging.
• 2021. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorizes the emergency use of the Covid-19 vaccine manufactured by the Johnson & Johnson laboratories, this being the first single-dose vaccine available in the United States.
• - The Venezuelan opposition, which is grouped under the figure of leader Juan Guaidó, denounces the application of torture to the military detained in recent years by the Government of Nicolás Maduro, whom it considers "political prisoners".
• 2022. The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, ordered the Russian containment forces to be put on "special service regime", after what he called "aggressive statements" by the main NATO countries.

Births: February 27th Anniversaries

• 272: Constantine I the Great, Roman emperor between 306 and 337
• 1870: Ben Hebard Fuller, Major General of the U.S. Marine Corps
• 1872: Joaquín Balaguer Lespier, Puerto Rican Merchant and father of former President Joaquín Balaguer Ricardo.
• 1874: Fernando Alberto Defilló, Distinguished Dominican doctor.
• 1891: Flérida María Lamarche Henríquez de Nolasco, Dominican essayist, musicologist, folklorist and professor.
• 1923: Bienvenido Bustamante López, Dominican merengue musician and composer.
• 1924: Patria Mercedes Mirabal Reyes, Dominican anti-Trujillo heroine. One of the three Mirabal sisters, a woman of courage and love for her nation.
• 1967: Jonathan Ive, British designer, Senior Vice President of Design at Apple.
• 1996: Zacarías Bonnat, Dominican weightlifter.

Deaths: February 27th Anniversaries

• 1833: Pierre Gabriel Aussenac, French military, Participated in the French expedition and occupation of the eastern part of the Island of Santo Domingo.
• 1845: María Trinidad Sánchez, Heroine who participated in the fight for independence, aunt of the patriot Francisco del Rosario Sánchez. Her hands made the national flag raised on February 27.
• 2013: Stéphane Hessel, one of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and author of the popular manifesto "Indignez-vous".
• 2014: Huber Matos, only exile of the historical commanders of the Cuban revolution.
• 2015: Julio César Strassera, former historical Argentine prosecutor, who put on trial the Argentine dictators who led the Military Juntas, in an unprecedented process that revealed to the world the terror of the dictatorship.
• 2021: Henry Ely, Dominican tenor.