What happened on 27 March?

9 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1845 Born: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen German physicist; discoverer of X-rays.
2. 1625 Reign of Charles I Reign of Charles I (1625-1649) as King of England, Scotland and Ireland.
3. 1184 BCE The death of Patroclus Iliad 16: wearing Achilles' armour, Patroclus drives the Trojans from the ships — and falls to Apollo, Euphorbus and Hector beneath the walls.
4. 1184 BCE The shield of Achilles Iliad 18: in one night Hephaestus forges new armour — and on the shield, the whole world: two cities, harvest and vintage, a wedding, a trial, the ocean round the rim.
5. 1184 BCE The battle at the ships Iliad 11–15: the great Achaean chiefs wounded one by one, the wall breached, and Hector calling for fire at the sterns of the ships.
6. 1809 Born: Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann Prefect of the Seine who redesigned Paris under Napoleon III.
7. 1924 Born: Sarah Vaughan American jazz vocalist.
8. 1766 Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield Goldsmith's gentle novel of a clergyman's family undone and restored — sold by Johnson to save its author from arrest, adored for a century after.
9. 1782 Lord Rockingham's second premiership Rockingham returns to negotiate American independence and dies after fourteen weeks in office.