October 27 in History

Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs signed Executive Order 44: 'The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state.' He was responding to escalating violence between Mormon settlers and Missouri residents. Three days earlier, a Mormon militia had killed 18 Missourians at Haun's Mill. Now Boggs made genocide official state policy. Mormons fled to Illinois. Joseph Smith was murdered there six years later. The order stayed on Missouri's books until 1976.

Union forces under General William F. Smith smash through Confederate lines at Brown's Ferry, shattering the siege around Chattanooga. This decisive victory instantly restores the critical supply route known as the Cracker Line, allowing starving troops to receive food and ammunition while turning a desperate defensive position into an offensive stronghold for the Union army.

Marshal Bazaine had been trapped in Metz for 54 days. He had 140,000 soldiers, the largest French force still intact. He surrendered them all without firing a shot. He claimed he was saving lives. France called it treason. The Germans marched the entire French army into captivity. Bazaine was court-martialed after the war and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted. He escaped to Spain and died in Madrid, despised. France lost the war four months later.

Hungarian soldiers fired into a crowd of Slovaks gathered for a church consecration in Černová, killing 15. The crowd had wanted their own priest, Andrej Hlinka, to consecrate the church. Authorities had banned him from attending. Slovaks blocked the road. Soldiers opened fire. The massacre became a symbol of Hungarian oppression. Hlinka later founded the Slovak People's Party. The church still stands.

HMS Audacious, a 23,400-ton super-dreadnought, hit a mine off Ireland and sank. The mine had been laid by a German merchant ship disguised as a neutral vessel. Britain kept the loss secret for four years—until the war ended—to hide their vulnerability. Passengers on the RMS Olympic, Titanic's sister ship, watched it sink and took photographs. Britain confiscated their cameras. The photos survived anyway.

Negus Mikael commanded 80,000 troops marching on Addis Ababa to restore his son Emperor Iyasu V, who'd been deposed for converting to Islam. Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis met him with 40,000 men at Segale. Both sides had machine guns. The battle lasted six hours. Mikael lost 15,000 men and was captured. Iyasu fled and hid for five years. Empress Zewditu ruled for 14 years. Ethiopia remained Christian and independent while European powers carved up Africa.

The Makhnovshchina convened its Fourth Regional Congress at Oleksandrivsk to solidify anarchist governance across southern Ukraine. This gathering formalized a decentralized network of free soviets that directly challenged both Bolshevik centralization and White Army counter-revolutionaries, proving peasant self-organization could sustain itself without state coercion.

The London Naval Treaty took effect, extending the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty's limits on warship construction. Britain, the U.S., Japan, France, and Italy agreed to scrap older ships and cap cruiser and destroyer tonnage. The treaty was meant to prevent another naval arms race. Japan withdrew from the treaty system six years later. World War II began three years after that. The limits expired with the treaties.

Wallis Simpson filed for divorce from Ernest Simpson in Ipswich, a small town chosen for its sympathetic judge. She'd been Edward's mistress for years. British newspapers, following a voluntary silence agreement, printed nothing. American papers covered it daily. Edward was King. The Church of England forbade him from marrying a divorcée. He chose her. He abdicated 41 days later. They married in France. She never became queen. He never stopped resenting it.