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Fort Ticonderoga is a large 18th-century fort built at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain in upstate New York. The site controls a river portage alongside the mouth of the rapids-infested La Chute River in the 3.5 miles (6 kilometers) between Lake Champlain and Lake George that was strategically important during the 18th-century colonial conflicts between Great Britain and France, and again to a lesser extent during the American Revolutionary War. At stake were commonly used trade routes between the English-controlled Hudson River Valley and the French-controlled Saint Lawrence River Valley. The fort attained a reputation for impregnability during the 1758 Battle of Carillon when 4,000 French defenders repelled an attack by 16,000 British troops near the fort. In 1759, the British returned and drove a token French garrison from the fort merely by occupying high ground that threatened the fort. During the American Revolutionary War, the Green Mountain Boys and other state militia under the command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured it in a surprise attack. The Americans held it until June 1777, when British forces under General John Burgoyne again occupied high ground above the fort and threatened the Continental Army troops, leading them to withdraw. The British abandoned the fort following the failure of the Saratoga campaign, and it ceased to be of military value after 1781. A foundation now operates the fort as a tourist attraction, museum, and research center. (more...)

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October 27: Independence Day in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1979) and Turkmenistan (1991)

• 1275 – The earliest recorded usage of the name "Amsterdam" was made on a certificate by Count Floris V of Holland that granted the inhabitants, who had built a bridge with a dam across the Amstel, an exemption from paying the bridge's tolls.
• 1553 – Condemned as a heretic for preaching nontrinitarianism and anti-infant baptism, Michael Servetus (pictured) was burned at the stake outside Geneva.
• 1644 – English Civil War: The combined armies of Parliament inflicted a tactical defeat on the Royalists, but failed to gain any strategic advantage in the Second Battle of Newbury.
• 1904 – The first underground segment of the New York City Subway, today one of the most extensive public transportation systems in the world, opened, connecting New York City Hall with Harlem.
• 1992 – U.S. Navy Petty Officer Allen R. Schindler, Jr. was killed in Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan, a victim of a hate crime for being gay, sparking a national debate that led to the establishment of the U.S. armed forces' "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

More anniversaries: October 26 – October 27 – October 28