Today in History - May 27 | Young woman's drug conviction splits Australia down the middle
One of Australia's most famous drug scandals reached a dramatic culmination on May 27, 2005, when beauty student Schapelle Corby was handed a 20-year sentence for drug smuggling by an Indonesian court.
The previous year, the 27-year-old Queenslander had been arrested at Bali airport with 4.1kg of cannabis in a bodyboard bag.
Corby and her family insisted she was innocent and said police ignored crucial evidence.
The trial of Corby became a media circus, and was watched live on television by millions of Australians. Many believed she was innocent and were stunned when she was found guilty.
Talkback radio shows faced a torrent of callers angry at Corby's sentencing, who claimed she never received justice by Indonesian authorities.
Following reductions in her sentence, Corby was freed on parole in 2014 but forced to stay in Bali a further three years. She returned to Australia in 2017.
Hollywood actor and Superman star Christopher Reeve was left a paraplegic on May 27, 1995, when he fell from a horse while competing in a cross-country competition.
Known as the "Man of Steel", Reeve — an avid athlete, sailor, skier and equestrian rider — was nearly killed in the accident that left him paralysed for the rest of his life.
On May 27, 1962, an underground fire in an abandoned coal seam beneath a town in the north-eastern US ignited, and continues today.
Centralia in Pennsylvania was once home to about 1200 people. It's now all but abandoned because of the fire.
Officials started the fire to clean up a rubbish dump, but the flames ignited a seam of coal that runs under the town.
Only a handful of residents remained in Centralia as of 2013.
Many of the town's properties have been demolished, but tourists still come to see what's left of the ghost town.
A historic referendum was held in Australia on May 27, 1967, when 90 per cent of voters backed changes in the Constitution to recognise First Nations people in the census and gave the Commonwealth powers to create equitable laws for them.
The vote is regarded as a high watermark in the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people and mainstream Australia.
Salem witch trials
On May 27, 1692, following weeks of imprisonments and informal court hearings, colonial authorities in North American ordered a special court to preside over witch trials in the town of Salem.
The trials were fomented by superstition and fear of disease, outsiders and Native Americans, and were stoked by petty jealousies and personal vendettas involving several families.
Of the 20 people convicted of witchcraft and subsequently put to death, 19 were hanged and one was crushed to death by rocks.
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