July 27 – Some important events on this day.
1214 👉🏼 1st battle of Bouvines: King Philip II of France vs Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV and King John of England; as a result John lost Normandy and his other possessions in France (hence his nickname John “Lackland”)
1377 👉🏼 First example of quarantine in Rugusa (now Dubroknik): city council passes law saying newcomers from plague areas must isolation for 30 days (later 40 days)
1549 👉🏼 1st Christian missionary in Japan, Jesuit priest Francis Xavier reaches Japan but is not permitted to enter any port until 15 August
1586 👉🏼 Walter Raleigh brings the 1st tobacco to England from Virginia
1689 👉🏼 Battle of Killicrankie: Jacobite Scottish Highlanders under Viscount Dundee defeat royalist force under General MacKay
1789 👉🏼 US Congress establishes Department of Foreign Affairs now referred to as the State Department
1866 👉🏼 Atlantic telegraph cable successfully laid (1,686 miles long).
The landing of the Atlantic Cable in 1866 at Hearts’ Content, Newfoundland was the third attempt to establish a telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean. The first attempt, made in 1858 lasted for about a month before it failed. A second try in 1865 also failed but the third attempt a year later would succeed.
The steamship SS Great Eastern designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel laid the cable and arrived at Heart’s Content on this day. The first message across the Atlantic was delivered the next day.
1890 👉🏼 Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh shoots himself in Auvers-sur-Oise, dies of injuries 2 days later
1909 👉🏼 British ship SS Waratah is last seen en-route from Durban to Cape Town. 211 on board are missing and no trace of the ship ever found
1920 👉🏼 Radio compass used for 1st time for aircraft navigation
1921 👉🏼 Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolate insulin at the University of Toronto
1940 👉🏼 Bugs Bunny, Warner Bros. cartoon character created by Tex Avery, Bob Givens (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series), first debuts in “Wild Hare”
1953 👉🏼 North Korea and the United Nations sign armistice to stop fighting and divide Korea at the 38th parallel.
On this day, the Korean War ended – except that technically it didn’t. Three years after the invasion of South Korea by North Korea, the bitter conflict on the peninsula was at a military stalemate and had been for two years. Conditions were miserable for the troops and neither side believed it could mount an offensive which would turn the tide in their favor.
To this end, the North Koreans backed by their communist allies and South Korea backed by its western allies reached an armistice agreement. Under these terms the war would end in a ceasefire and Korea would be divided at the 38th parallel. The powers were meant to continue negotiating a final peace agreement, but this has never happened.
And since then, the peninsula has technically still been at war. The incredibly tense relations between North and South are partly to do with this – every now and then, the North threatens to tear up the armistice and resume war with the South.
1982 👉🏼 Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s musical “Little Shop of Horrors” opens Off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre in NYC
2012 👉🏼 Queen Elizabeth II opens the 30th Olympics in London, United Kingdom (with some help from 007)