Riots begin in Paris after the deaths of two Muslim teenagers.

The SSETI Express micro-satellite is successfully launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

The Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time in 86 years.

Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchyan, and 6 other members.

October 27, 1997 mini-crash: Stock markets around the world crash because of fears of a global economic meltdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummets 554.26 points to 7,161.15. For the first time, the New York Stock Exchange activates its "circuit breakers" twice during the day eventually making the controversial move of closing the Exchange early.

Former Prime Minister of Italy Bettino Craxi is convicted ''in absentia'' of corruption.

Latvia applies for membership in the European Union.

Gliese 229B is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified.

The U.S. prison population tops 1 million for the first time in American history.

United States Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is brutally murdered by shipmate Terry M. Helvey for being gay, precipitating first military, then national, debate about gays in the military that resulted in the United States "Don't ask, don't tell" military policy.

Turkmenistan achieves independence from the Soviet Union.

Ronald Reagan decides to tear down the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow because of Soviet listening devices in the building structure.

The British government suddenly deregulates financial markets, leading to a total restructuring of the way in which they operate in the country, in an event now referred to as the Big Bang.

The Soviet submarine ''U 137'' runs aground on the east coast of Sweden.

The Cañon City meteorite, a 1.4 kg chondrite type meteorite, strikes in Fremont County, Colorado.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is renamed Zaire.

Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launched his political career and came to be known as "A Time for Choosing".

Major Rudolf Anderson of the United States Air Force becomes the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane is shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile.

NASA launches the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.

Iskander Mirza, the first President of Pakistan, is deposed in a bloodless coup d'état by General Ayub Khan, who had been appointed the enforcer of martial law by Mirza 20 days earlier.

Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.

British nuclear test ''Totem 2'' is carried out at Emu Field, South Australia.

Léopold Sédar Senghor founds the Senegalese Democratic Bloc.

Mrs Wallis Simpson files for divorce which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.

The Uzbek SSR is founded in the Soviet Union.

A referendum in Rhodesia rejects the country's annexation to the South African Union.

Battle of Segale: Negus Mikael, marching on the Ethiopian capital in support of his son Emperor Iyasus V, is defeated by Fitawrari abte Giyorgis, securing the throne for Empress Zauditu.

World War I: The British super-dreadnought battleship HMS Audacious (23,400 tons), is sunk off Tory Island, north-west of Ireland, by a minefield laid by the armed German merchant-cruiser ''Berlin''.

The first underground New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes the biggest in United States, and one of the biggest in world.

Marshal François Achille Bazaine surrenders to Prussian forces at Metz along with 140,000 French soldiers in one of the biggest French defeats of the Franco-Prussian War.

Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated.

United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida.

The French Army enters Berlin.

The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid, which establishes the boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded.

Second Battle of Newbury in the English Civil War.

Condemned as a heretic, Michael Servetus is burned at the stake just outside Geneva.

Italian Wars: The French troops lay siege to Pavia.

Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.

Edmund I succeeds Athelstan as King of England.

Saracen invasion of Sardinia.

Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross.