December 27 seems to be a date unusually rich in important events from psychology’s past, for both good and ill. From Warren Street’s “Today in the History of Psychology” website:

1831 — The Beagle departed England with Charles Darwin aboard as ship’s naturalist.

1892 — The first annual meeting of the APA was held at the University of Pennsylvania. The first address, given by G. Stanley Hall, was “History and Prospects of Experimental Psychology in America.” The first annual budget was $63.

1893 — The second annual meeting of the APA was held at Columbia College. Mary Calkins and Christine Ladd-Franklin were elected to membership at this meeting. They were the first women members of the APA. The APA was the second American scientific society to admit women members. The American Association for the Advancement of Science had women members before 1860.

1904 — The first annual meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology was held at Johns Hopkins University. James Mark Baldwin was the first president of the association, which adopted its constitution at this meeting.

1935 — The first modern psychiatric surgery to sever the neurons of the frontal lobe was performed. Portuguese surgeon Egas Moniz performed the operation at Santa Marta Hospital in Lisbon. Plugs, or “cores,” of tissue were severed by rotating a wire loop inside the brain. Moniz won a Nobel prize for this work.