On March 27

Forty people are killed in a fire at a migrant detention facility in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

North Macedonia became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Himeji Castle, the largest and most visited Japanese castle, re-opened after five years of restoration work.

A failure of the dam holding Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Tangerang, Indonesia, caused floods that killed at least 100 people.

Second Intifada: A suicide bomber killed around 30 Israeli civilians and injured about 140 others in Netanya, triggering Operation Defensive Shield, a large-scale counter-terrorist military incursion into the West Bank.

NATO bombing of Yugoslavia: A U.S. Air Force F-117 stealth aircraft was shot down by a Yugoslav Army unit.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the drug sildenafil (chemical structure pictured), better known by the trade name Viagra, as the first treatment approved in the United States for erectile dysfunction.

Jiang Zemin succeeded Yang Shangkun to become President of the People's Republic of China.

The Solidarity movement in Poland staged a warning strike, the largest in the history of the Eastern Bloc, in which at least 12 million Poles walked off their jobs for four hours.

Brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt failed in their attempt to corner the world silver market, causing panic in commodity and futures exchanges.

The Washington Metro (rolling stock pictured), the second-busiest rapid transit system in the U.S., opened to commuters.

Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, an oil pipeline spanning the length of Alaska, began.

Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, assumed the office of premier.

World War II: The United States Army Air Forces began Operation Starvation, laying naval mines in many of Japan's vital water routes and ports to disrupt enemy shipping.

World War II: A group of Serbian-nationalist officers of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force carried out a coup d'état after Yugoslavia joined the Axis powers.

Philippine–American War: American forces defeated troops commanded by Philippine president Emilio Aguinaldo at the Battle of Marilao River.

Outraged by a jury's decision to convict a man of manslaughter instead of murder, a mob in Cincinnati, Ohio, began three days of rioting.

San Diego, the first European settlement in present-day California, was incorporated as a city.

At least 425 Texian prisoners of war were executed in the Goliad massacre, under orders from Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna.

The first of four destructive earthquakes struck southern Italy, destroying an estimated 10,000 homes.