27 May

1679 London, Politics. Parliament passed Habeas Corpus Act which allows a prisoner to challenge the cause of arrest before a court.

1703 Peter the Great founded St Petersburg. Been there, seen that. A discussion of a biography of Great Peter can be found elsewhere on this blog.

1873 Troy, Archeology. Heinrich Schliemann found Priam’s Treasure of gold and precious stones. Ditto.

1937 San Francisco, Technology: The Golden Gate Bridge was opened to pedestrians. More than 200,000 people paid .25 cents to walk across it during the weekend. On Monday President Franklin Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in the White House that raised the barrier to automobile traffic for the first time. Ditto.

1967 Canberra, Politics. The Holt conservative government called a national referendum that recognised Aboriginal rights to citizenship. The initiative for the vote is credited to Liberal Bill Wentworth in a private members bill. The Opposition Labor Party supported the government’s call for a YES vote, which was 90.7%. The ALP How-to-Vote card is shown below.