Once Upon A Time – July 27 – 2012 – Queen Elizabeth II Opens 30th Olympics In London, With Some Help From 007

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

Historical Events Today

Today In Film & TV

1940 Bugs Bunny, Warner Bros. cartoon character created by Tex Avery, Bob Givens (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series), first debuts in “Wild Hare”

Today In Music

1982 Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s musical “Little Shop of Horrors” opens Off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre in NYC

Today In Sport

1999 Tony Hawk is the first skateboarder to land a “900”

More Facts…

1549 1st Christian missionary in Japan, Jesuit priest Francis Xavier reaches Japan but is not permitted to enter any port until 15 August

2012 Queen Elizabeth II opens the 30th Olympics in London, United Kingdom (with some help from 007)

Famous Weddings

1365 Isabella of England marries Enguerrand of Coucy at Windsor

1857 Emperor of Mexico Maximilian I (25) weds princess Charlotte of Belgium (17) in Brussels

1927 British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (39) weds Elizabeth Carver in Chiswick, England