1. In 1912, the first airplane took off in Alaska. Pilot Frank Barlow flew a Wright Model B biplane in Fairbanks, Alaska, making it the first airplane flight in the state's history.

2. On August 27, 1958, the United States Department of the Interior established the Arctic National Wildlife Range in northeastern Alaska. The area would eventually be expanded and renamed the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

3. The 1964 Good Friday earthquake, the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America, occurred off the coast of Alaska on August 27. The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 9.2, caused widespread damage and a tsunami that devastated coastal communities.

4. The Russian-American Company, a trading company that controlled Alaska from 1799 to 1867, officially transferred control of the territory to the United States on August 27, 1868, in a ceremony in Sitka, Alaska.

5. On August 27, 1913, the SS Alaska, a steamship operated by the Pacific Steamship Company, caught fire and sank in Cook Inlet near Seldovia, Alaska. All passengers and crew members survived, but the incident became known as one of the worst disasters in Alaska maritime history.