January-December, 1927. Civil war continues in China as General Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist army attempt to consolidate power over all of China and drive out the warlords who control various parts of the country. In March, Chiang Kai-shek’s army takes the important port city of Shanghai, but Communists in Hankow and in Shanghai refuse to cooperate with the Nationalist government and declare their own revolution. In December General Kai-shek crushes a Communist uprising in the city of Canton.
January 7 1927. The first transatlantic telephone call is made from New York City to London.
January 31, 1927. Britain orders 12.000 soldiers to proceed immediately to Shanghai to protect British citizens and British interests in the city. The United States orders Navy ships and Marines to the city on a similar mission.
February, 1927. An attempted rebellion against the military dictatorship of President Antonio Carmona in Portugal is crushed in Lisbon. Carmona named himself president in July, 1926. Carmona will be president of Portugal for the next 24 years until his death in 1951.
April 30, 1927. The Mississippi River floods destroying many communities in several states. Over 200,000 people lose their homes.
May 21, 1927. Charles Lindbergh, in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis, becomes the first person to fly alone non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris. He immediately becomes an international celebrity.
July 10, 1927. Kevin O’Higgins, vice-president of the Irish Free State (Ireland), is assassinated while on his way to Mass by three members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The killing fuels fears of further civil war and unrest in Ireland.
July 15, 1927. WWI veterans and striking workers occupy the University of Vienna in Austria and they seize the Palace of Justice and set it on fire. Socialists are calling for the resignation of Austrian Chancellor Ignaz Seipel’s government; the socialist leaders are accusing Seipel of tolerating the illegal activities of the rioters.
October 23, 1927. Josef Stalin expels political rivals Leon Trotsky and Grigori Zinoviev from the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.
December 2, 1927. Sales begin of the new Model A Ford, a replacement for the Model T. The new Model A is available in four standard colors, but not in black.