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Robespierre / Transatlantic Telegraph / Bugs Bunny
On This Day (July 27): Your quick daily trip back in time.
Fatih Taskiran
July 27, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
🌟 Editor's Note
Good morning! It's Sunday, July 27, during summer vacation, and we're exploring the first transatlantic telegraph cable, the overthrow of Robespierre, Bugs Bunny's birth, and much more. Oh, and don't miss our legendary Strange Times story this week..
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🗓️ Time Machine
-1586 | The first tobacco was brought from Virginia to England by Walter Raleigh. |
-1689 | In the Battle of Killicrankie, Jacobite Scottish Highlanders under Viscount Dundee defeated a royalist force under General MacKay. |
-1789 | The US Congress establishes the Department of State, now referred to as the State Department. |
-1794 | Robespierre, the architect of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, was overthrown and arrested by the National Convention. |
-1866 | First transatlantic telegraph cable lands at Heart's Content, Newfoundland, after being laid 1,686 miles by the SS Great Eastern steamship. |
-1921 | Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolated insulin at the University of Toronto. |
-1940 | The Warner Bros. cartoon character Bugs Bunny originated in the "A Wild Hare" series by Tex Avery and Bob Givens (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies). |
-1974 | The House Judiciary Committee recommends impeaching and removing Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States. |
📸 Snapshot
💬 Final Words
🦄 Strange Times
The Time America Nearly Nuked the Moon
Think Cold War paranoia was all spy movies and bomb shelters? Get ready for one of the strangest episodes ever: nuking the moon. Yes, you read that right. In the 1950s Space Race, American military strategists came up with "Project A119," a bizarre and audacious plan to launch a hydrogen bomb on the moon—simply to show off against the Soviets.
A crack team of scientists was put together, including planetary physicist Gerard Kuiper (yes, the Kuiper Belt guy) and Carl Sagan (yes, that Carl Sagan). Their job? Figure out if a lunar nuke would produce a showy mushroom cloud visible from Earth. Spoiler alert: without atmosphere, the moon wouldn't give them a dramatic show—just a huge cloud of dust, no sound, no shockwave.
Luckily for all of mankind, that project got canned in favor of the moon landings. Astronauts landing on the moon started looking way cooler and less apocalyptic. Score one for common sense—and for preserving the moon's dignity.
🔥 In Case You Missed It…
🏆 FlashQuiz
Did we make history today? |
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