Today in History

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2015. There are 338 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Jan. 27, 1945, during World War II, Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.

On this date:

In 1756, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria.

In 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

In 1901, opera composer Giuseppe Verdi died in Milan, Italy, at age 87.

In 1944, during World War II, the Soviet Union announced the complete end of the deadly German siege of Leningrad, which had lasted for more than two years.

In 1951, an era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flat.

In 1965, "Up the Down Staircase," Bel Kaufman's novel about a young, idealistic teacher at a New York inner-city school, was published by Prentice-Hall.

In 1967, astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft. More than 60 nations signed a treaty banning the orbiting of nuclear weapons.

In 1973, the Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.

In 1984, singer Michael Jackson suffered serious burns to his scalp when pyrotechnics set his hair on fire during the filming of a Pepsi-Cola TV commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

In 1998, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, on NBC's "Today" show, charged the sexual misconduct allegations against her husband were the work of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

Ten years ago: Condoleezza Rice, in her first day on the job as Secretary of State, reached out by phone to European allies and partners in the war on terrorism and echoed President George W. Bush's inaugural charge to promote liberty across the globe. Frail survivors and humbled world leaders remembered the victims of the Holocaust as they marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz.

Five years ago: Acknowledging that "change has not come fast enough," President Barack Obama vowed in his State of the Union address to get jobless millions back to work while fighting for ambitious overhauls of health care, energy and education. Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad tablet computer during a presentation in San Francisco. J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of "The Catcher in the Rye," died in Cornish, New Hampshire, at age 91. Actress Zelda Rubinstein died in Los Angeles at age 76.

One year ago: Mexico essentially legalized the country's growing "self-defense" groups, reaching an agreement with vigilante leaders to incorporate the armed civilian outfits into old and largely forgotten quasi-military units called the Rural Defense Corps. Folk singer and activist Pete Seeger, 94, died in New York.

Thought for Today: "When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him." — Jonathan Swift, Anglo-Irish satirist (1667-1745).

(Above Advance for Use Tuesday, Jan. 27)