On this day — May 27

A flood occurs throughout the Patapsco Valley, causing one death, destroying the entire first floors of buildings on Main Street in Ellicott City, and causing cars to overturn.

leaving more than 5,700 dead and 37,000 injured.

an Islamist separatist group, seize twenty hostages from an affluent island resort on Palawan in the Philippines; the hostage crisis would not be resolved until June 2002.

the first shuttle mission to dock with the International Space Station.

Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.

spawning multiple tornadoes in Central Texas, including the F5 that killed 27 in Jarrell.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechen rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire.

The Somali National Movement launches a major offensive against Somali government forces in Hargeisa and Burao, then the second- and third-largest cities of Somalia.

It had been under construction since the 1950s.

Airborne and army troops of South Korea retake the city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207 and possibly many more.

Cuba, kills 67.

in North Yorkshire, England, kills 33 – the highest ever death toll in a road accident in the United Kingdom.