On This Day In History
July 27th
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 First transatlantic telegraph cable comes ashore at Heart’s Content, Newfoundland after being laid out 1,686 miles by Isambard Kingdom Brunel‘s Great Eastern steamship
1921 Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolate insulin at the University of Toronto
Did You Know?
1st Christian missionary in Japan, Jesuit priest Francis Xavier reaches Japan but is not permitted to enter any port until 15 August
Today in History in 1549
Would You Believe?
Queen Elizabeth II opens the 30th Olympics in London, United Kingdom (with some help from 007)
Today in History in 2012
July 28th
1794 French Revolutionary figure Maximilien robespierre and 22 other leaders of “the Terror” guillotined to thunderous cheers in Paris
1914 Austria-Hungary decides against mediation and declares war on Serbia – first declaration of war of WWI
1917 Silent Parade organised by James Weldon Johnson of 10,000 African-Americans who march on 5th Ave in NYC to protest against lynching
1943 Operation Gomorrah: RAF bombing over Hamburg causes a firestorm that kills 42,600 German civilians
1976 Tangshan Earthquake, 8.2 in magnitude kills over 240,000 Northern China in the largest loss of life from an earthquake in the 20th century
2005 The Provisional Irish Republican Army call an end to their thirty year long armed campaign in Northern Ireland
Did You Know?
Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva arrive on the Pacific island of Tinian with the plutonium core used to assemble the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9
Today in History in 1945
Would You Believe?
“Elevator girl” Betty Lou Oliver survives falling 75 stories after fog causes a US bomber plane to crash into the Empire State Building, breaking the cables supporting the elevator she was operating. This remains a world record for the longest survived elevator fall
Today in History in 1945