July 27
1794: As the French grew increasingly weary of the Jacobin Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, a revolt, the Thermidorian Reaction, was initiated by Antoine-Christophe Merlin and other conspirators on this day (9 Thermidor, year II, according to the French republican calendar), which resulted in the execution of Maximilien Robespierre and the collapse of revolutionary fervour in France. The same guillotine that on 9 Thermidor executed 45 anti-Robespierrists executed in the following three days 104 Robespierrists, inaugurating a brief “White Terror” against Jacobins throughout France. Notably, the journalist Louis Fréron organized gangs of fashionably dressed jeunesse dorée (“gilded youth”), who assaulted Jacobin workmen in the streets.
1996: A pipe bomb was detonated in Olympic Centennial Park during the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, killing one person and injuring 111.
1953: The armistice agreement ending the Korean War was signed at P'anmunjom, Korea.
1946: Avant-garde writer Gertrude Stein, whose Paris home was a salon for leading artists and writers, died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.
1919: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 was ignited after a young black man was stoned and drowned in Lake Michigan for swimming in an area reserved for whites.
1909: The world's first military airplane completed one of the final qualifying flights for its sale to the U.S. Army Signal Corps by Wilbur and Orville Wright.
1830: The July Revolution began in France, leading to the abdication of Charles X and bringing Louis-Philippe to the throne.
1214: At the Battle of Bouvines, French King Philip II defeated an international coalition led by the Holy Roman emperor Otto IV. |
