Happy Birthday April 27

The historian Edward Gibbon was born on April 27, 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon at Lime Grove, in the town of Putney, Surrey. Never a strong or active man, Gibbon was of diminutive stature, little more than 5 ft tall with a large head and uncommonly small bones. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788.

Samuel Morse was born on April 27, 1791. After establishing his reputation as a portrait painter, Morse devoted his middle age to creating a fast way of sending messages. He was prompted to do this after being told his his wife was ill via a horse messenger; but the letter had taken so long to reach him that by the time he arrived home, she was not only dead, but had been buried. The system of dots and dashes he came up with by which telegraphic messages are conveyed is named after him.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse, 1840

General Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States  was born Hiram Ulysses Grant in Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822, to Jesse Root Grant, a tanner and merchant, and Hannah Simpson Grant. President Grant’s real name was Hiram Ulysses Grant - the 'S' was a typo when he secured a nomination to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Grant changed his name at West Point to avoid having his military uniforms marked with initials "H.U.G."

For more April 27 anniversaries, including Ludwig Van Beethoven's composition of "Für Elise," the worst maritime disaster in US history, and the declaration of Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII as saints, check out OnThatDay.