On this day: July 27
A wise-cracking cartoon bunny makes his first appearance, the Korean War ends, Madonna drops her debut album, tragedy hits the Olympics and an entertainment legend dies at age 100, all on this day.
1586: Sir Walter Raleigh brings the first tobacco to England from Virginia.
1586: Sir Walter Raleigh brings the first tobacco to England from Virginia.
1789: The first U.S. federal government agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs, is established (it will be later renamed Department of State).
1890: Vincent van Gogh shoots himself in the chest and dies two days later.
1919: The Chicago Race Riot erupts after a young African-American is struck by a rock thrown by a white man and dies at an informally segregated beach on the city's souty side, leading to 38 fatalities and 537 injuries over a five-day period. In this picture, a family leaves a home damaged in the rioting.
1921: Researchers at the University of Toronto led by biochemist Frederick Banting prove that the hormone insulin regulates blood sugar. Banting, along with co-discoverer John James Rickard Macleod, would receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1923 for the discovery.
1922: TV writer and producer Norman Lear ("All in the Family," "Sanford and Son," "The Jeffersons"), seen here in 2008, is born in New Haven, Conn.
1929: The Geneva Convention of 1929, dealing with treatment of prisoners-of-war, is signed by 53 nations.
1940: The animated short "A Wild Hare" is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny. The character is unnamed in this film, but would be named for the first time in his next short, 1941's "Elmer's Pet Rabbit," directed by Chuck Jones.
1949: The first jet-powered airliner, de Havilland Comet, makes its initial flight.
1953: Fighting in the Korean War ends when the United States, the People's Republic of China and North Korea sign an armistice agreement. South Korean President Syngman Rhee refuses to sign but pledges to observe the armistice. Pictured is Chinese Gen. Peng Dehuai signing the agreement.
1955: The Austrian State Treaty, re-establishing Austria as a sovereign state after 10 years of Allied occupation following World War II, officially goes into force.
1960: Vice President Richard Nixon is nominated for president at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.
1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs a bill requiring cigarette makers to print health warnings on all cigarette packages about the effects of smoking. It requires the nominal warning, "Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous To Your Health," on all cigarette packaging.
1974: The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment (for obstruction of justice) against President Richard Nixon due to the Watergate scandal.
1975: Major-league baseball player Alex Rodriguez is born in New York City.
1976: Tina Turner files for a divorce from Ike Turner.
1977: After years of fighting deportation, former Beatle John Lennon is granted a green card for permanent residence in the United States.
1981: Adam Walsh, 6, the son of John Walsh is kidnapped in Hollywood, Fla., and is found murdered two weeks later. Convicted serial killer Ottis Toole later confesses to the boy's murder but was never tried for the crime due to loss of evidence and a recanted confession. John Walsh would go on to become an advocate for victims of violent crimes and the host of the TV show "America's Most Wanted."
1983: Madonna's self-titled debut album is released about a month before her 25th birthday. The album peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, and yielded the hit singles "Holiday," "Borderline" and "Lucky Star."
1984: Prince's first movie, "Purple Rain," debuts in theaters.
1986: Greg LeMond becomes the first American to win the Tour de France. He would go on to win it two more times, in 1989 and 1990 (pictured).
1987: RMS Titanic, Inc., begins the first expedited salvage of wreckage of the RMS Titanic.
1990: Zsa Zsa Gabor begins a three-day jail sentence for slapping a Beverly Hills traffic police officer.
1992: The Houston Astros begin a 26-game road trip to make room for Republican National Convention at the Houston Astrodome.
1993: Reggie Lewis of the Boston Celtics suffers sudden cardiac death on the basketball court at an off-season practice at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. He was only 27 years old.
1995: The Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1996: A pipe bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics. One woman, Alice Hawthorne, is killed and a cameraman suffers a heart attack fleeing the scene. Another 111 people are injured in the attack. The park reopens three days later. The attack turns out to be the first of four bombings committed by Eric Robert Rudolph, who will eventually be captured in 2003 and sentenced to four life terms without the possibility of parole in 2005.
2002: A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashes during an air show at Lviv, Ukraine, killing 85 and injuring more than 100 others in the largest air show disaster in history.
2003: Comedian and actor Bob Hope dies at age 100 in Los Angeles.
2005: NASA grounds the space shuttle, pending an investigation of the continuing problem with the shedding of foam insulation from the external fuel tank. During ascent, the external tank of the space shuttle Discovery sheds a piece of foam slightly smaller than the piece that caused the Columbia disaster; this foam does not strike the spacecraft.
