July 27

250 July 27th is the feast day of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, a group of youths who were said to have hidden in a cave to escape religious persecution around 250 AD. According to the legend, they fell asleep and woke up 300 years later. The legend has led to July 27 being celebrated as National Sleepy Head Day in Finland. In the city of Naantali, National Sleepy Head Day is marked by throwing a local dignitary into the sea at 7am. Often it is the mayor.

1215 Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor was buried in 814 on the same day as his death in Aachen Cathedral, although the cold weather and the nature of his illness made such a hurried burial unnecessary. The Karlsschrein (English: Shrine of Charlemagne) in Aachen Cathedral was made in Aachen at the command of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick II personally carried out the transfer of the bones and the sealing of the shrine on July 27, 1215.

Karlsschrein at Aachen Cathedral. By Sailko - Wikipedia

1549 Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier reached Japan on July 27, 1549, only six years after the first ever Portuguese merchant visited there. After learning Japanese at Kagoshima, Xavier was given leave to teach as a representative of the Portuguese King.  During 1551, Xavier preached in some important cities, forming the nucleus of several Christian communities, which in time increased with extraordinary rapidity.

1586 The 1585-86 expedition to Roanoke Island on the outer banks of Virginia, which was funded by Sir Walter Raleigh brought tobacco back to England on July 27, 1586. During the tobacco craze that followed the first imports of the weed to Britain, everybody smoked it in the belief that it had a powerfully healthy effect. For a time, boys at Eton school were beaten for neglecting to smoke their tobacco.

1694 The Bank of England (see below) began its existence on July 27, 1694. It was created by royal charter and capitalized by a public share subscription. In return for this privilege, the bank loaned the Government £1.2 million at 8 per cent interest, plus an annual management fee of £4,000.

1740 French explorer and botanist Jeanne Baret was born on July 27, 1740. An assistant botanist on Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition in 1766–1769 that explored the Southern Hemisphere. Baret is recognized as the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation of the globe. Because French naval regulations prohibited female crew members, she spent most of the voyage disguised as a young man, calling herself Jean Baret. She extensively collected and categorized plants during her travels. 

1844 British chemist John Dalton, who developed modern atomic theory, died on July 27, 1844.
John Dalton proposed the existence of atoms, which he considered to be the smallest parts of matter. The idea of atoms was already known at the time, but not widely accepted. Dalton's theory of atoms was based on actual observation. Before this, ideas about atoms were based more on philosophy.

1870 Hilaire Belloc was born in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France on July 27, 1870. He was a French-born British author, poet, historian, and essayist. He was one of the most versatile English writers of the first quarter of the 20th century. He is best remembered for his light verse, particularly for children, and for the lucidity and easy grace of his essays, which could be delightfully about nothing or decisively about some of the key controversies of the Edwardian era.

1921 The connection between sweet food and diabetes was known in Ancient China. They noted that the excessive amounts of urine diabetics produced attracted ants and flies and devised a test for it by observing whether ants are attracted to a person's urine. Researchers at the University of Toronto led by biochemist Frederick Banting proved on July 27, 1921 that the hormone insulin regulates blood sugar. Purified insulin was first used to treat diabetes and its acute complications in January 1922.

1940 Bugs Bunny made his debut in the Warner Bros animated cartoon A Wild Hare on July 27, 1940. A Wild Hare was a massive success and is often considered one of Bugs Bunny's best and most influential appearances. Notably, the cartoon received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cartoon Short Subject at the 13th Academy Awards in 1941. 

1940 Single music charts were published for the first time by Billboard magazine when the 10-position "National List of Best Selling Retail Records" appeared in the July 27, 1940, issue. This chart featured the top 10 best-selling songs based on retail sales in the United States at that time. It marked the beginning of Billboard's longstanding tradition of tracking and ranking the most popular songs in the country, and their charts have since become a significant authority in the music industry.

1949 The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1, made its maiden flight on July 27 1949 out of Hatfield Aerodrome. It lasted 31 minutes. Within three years. the BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) had began operating the first commercial jet service with the de Havilland Comet jetliner. It made its maiden flight with fare-paying passengers and inaugurated scheduled service from London to Johannesburg in May 1952.

1953 The Korean war ended when the US, China and North Korea signed an armistice agreement on July 27, 1953. The armistice was designed to "insure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved." The signed armistice put into force a cease-fire, established the Korean Demilitarized Zone and finalized repatriation of prisoners of war. No lasting peace treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war.

1983 Madonna's self-titled debut album was released on July 27, 1983. The album was a huge success, spawning several hit singles, including "Holiday", "Borderline", and "Lucky Star". The album's upbeat synth-pop sound was a major influence on the dance-pop genre, and it helped to establish Madonna as a global superstar.

1989 The longest prison sentence in history is 141,078 years. It was given to prisoner Chamoy Thipyaso, a Thai woman who was convicted of fraud in 1989. However, she was released after only eight years, due to a law in Thailand that limits the amount of time that a person can be imprisoned for fraud.

2003 Bob Hope died of pneumonia on July 27, 2003, two months after his 100th birthday. He was buried three days later, and reburied two years later in a custom made grave in California. Hope holds two entries in The Guinness Book of World Records. One is for having the distinction of being the entertainer with "the longest running contract with a single network - spanning sixty-one years". The second is for being the "most honored entertainer", with over 1500 awards.

2010 The longest continuous dramatic performance is 23 hours, 33 minutes, and 54 seconds. It was achieved by the 27 O'Clock Players (USA) who performed The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco at Belmar, New Jersey, USA, on July 27, 2010. The play has a looped ending where the script requires the continuous repetition of the play with actors swapping roles. The approximately one-hour script was repeated 25 times during the attempt.

2017 Amazon president Jeff Bezos became the world’s richest person — for 4 hours — due to a surge in stock on July 27, 2017 which increased his worth by $1.1 billion to $90.9 billion. It meant he overtook Microsoft’s Bill Gates. By noon the next day, Bezos’s stock had fallen. Bezos would continue to sporadically surpass Gates and on March 6, 2018, he was designated the wealthiest person in the world with a registered net worth of $112 billion.

2023 A group of soldiers staged a coup d'état in Niger on July 26, 2023. They detained President Mohamed Bazoum and other government officials. It was led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, who took control of the country. The coup was met with widespread condemnation from the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and Western powers.