April 27 Birthday
On April 27, 1994, South Africa held its first democratic elections with universal suffrage. Nelson Mandela voted for the first time in his life at a school in Inanda, near Durban. He was seventy-five. He had been in prison for twenty-seven years. The African National Congress won 62% of the vote. Mandela was inaugurated on May 10. The election was not without violence — a bomb in Johannesburg killed nine people on the day before the vote — but the process held. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established by Mandela, heard testimony from victims and perpetrators of apartheid-era crimes. It was an experiment in transitional justice that has been studied and imitated worldwide. South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy is often cited as a miracle. It was not a miracle — it was the result of decades of struggle, international pressure, and the political wisdom of leaders on both sides. The USS Sultana exploded on April 27, 1865, on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee. The steamboat was carrying 2,137 passengers — mostly Union soldiers recently released from Confederate prison camps — on a vessel licensed for 376. One of the four boilers exploded, and the ship burned to the waterline in twenty minutes. 1,700 people died, making it the worst maritime disaster in American history. The disaster occurred eleven days after Lincoln's assassination and was largely ignored by the press. The captain, who survived, had bribed an inspector to allow the overcrowding. The Sultana was forgotten because it happened at the end of the Civil War, when the public was numb to death. In 1805, United States Marines marched 600 miles across the Libyan Desert and stormed the city of Derna, held by the forces of Tripoli. It was the first time the American flag flew over a foreign fortress. The phrase "to the shores of Tripoli" in the Marine Corps Hymn commemorates this battle. The First Barbary War was fought against pirates who demanded tribute from American ships in the Mediterranean. The United States had been paying $1 million per year in tribute — 20% of the federal budget. President Jefferson refused to pay and sent the Navy. The war lasted four years and ended with a treaty that still required a $60,000 ransom for American prisoners. Ulysses S. Grant, born this day in 1822, was a failure at everything except war. He was a mediocre student at West Point, an alcoholic who was forced to resign from the Army, and a man who failed at farming and real estate. When the Civil War began, he was working in his father's leather goods store. He volunteered, and his talent emerged immediately. He won the first major Union victory at Fort Donelson, captured Vicksala, and was given command of all Union armies. He accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox. As president, he was honest himself but presided over an administration riddled with corruption. He wrote his memoirs while dying of throat cancer, finishing five days before his death, to pay off his debts. People born on April 27 fall under the zodiac sign of Taurus. The birthstone is Diamond and the birth flower is Daisy. Historical events on April 27 include 1805: US Marines storm Derna, Tripoli ("shores of Tripoli"), 1865: Steamboat Sultana explodes on Mississippi, killing 1,700 (worst US maritime disaster), 1994: South Africa holds first multiracial democratic elections (Mandela votes for first time). Famous people born on April 27 include Ulysses S. Grant (1822), Samuel Morse (1791), Casey Kasem (1932).