Today in Gay History :: August 27th

Queer Events On This Day In History...

1782 John Laurens, who had served under US General George Washington, dies at the age of 28. Though he was married, he had an affair with Alexander Hamilton, who was a member of the Continental Congress.

1943 Eleanor Roosevelt US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt arrives for a visit to New Zealand without her lover Lorena Hikok, but with a "personal aide", Norah Walton, who could not type, even though Eleanor had to produce a daily syndicated column.

1967 Brian Epstein, British manager of the Beatles, commits suicide at age 32.

1969 Erica Mann, wife of gay poet W.H. Auden, dies in Zurich. The marriage was arranged in 1935 by Christopher Isherwood to help Mann get a British passport to flee Nazi Germany.

1970 Sir Elton JohnBritish singer Elton John plays his first US concert at the Troubador in Los Angeles, but he wasn't out at that time.

1976 Renee Richards, a transsexual tennis player, is barred from playing tennis in the women's division because she was still "biologically a man."

1978 Gaydays, a summer gay festival in downtown Toronto, closes.

1994 Director, dancer, and choreographer Michael Peters dies of complications from AIDS in Los Angeles at age 46.

2004 After stalling on their applications for 15 years, the Honduras government grants legal recognition to three gay rights groups -- the Violet Collective, the Gay Community and the Gay-Lesbian Group -- a relatively mundane step which allows the groups the right to act before courts and government institutions. Local Christian religious leaders howled in protest, but to no avail.