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August 27
1776. The Battle of Brooklyn Heights, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn or the Battle of Long Island. This was the first major battle of the American Revolution after the issuance of hte Declaration of Independence, and was overwhelmingly a British victory.
Earlier in the year, the British had fled Boston after the Continentals had brought cannons from Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights, overlooking Boston. George Washington, therefore, brought his army to New York, to defend the key juncture between New England and the rest of the colonies. After making some very shaky strategic and tactical decisions, however, and being routed in the first day of battle, the rebels escape a prolonged (and certainly futile) siege by fleeing during the night across the river, helped by an early morning fog which helped conceal the evacuation that had not yet been completed by daybreak. At 7:00 a.m. Washington, the last man out, had saved his 9,000 troops in their entirety.
Though the withdrawal had been ingenius, it didn't disguise either the faulty initial plans that had resulted in the Revolutionary Army's poor situation, nor retrieve the fact that New York had been lost.
1859. What will become the first commercially successful oil well is discovered at Titusville, Pennsylvania.
1939. First flight of the Heinkel HE 178 -- the world's first jet aircraft.
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