The rain in Spain may stay mainly in the plain

But it came down in buckets last night all over NYC (that was an intense storm yesterday.)

July 27, 1949 -
Mighty Joe Young, an RKO Radio Pictures made by the same creative team responsible for King Kong. premiered in New York City on this date.



This was the first feature film for which Ray Harryhausen used his newly created stop-motion technique.

(At age 55, Terry Moore, star of the film, who describes herself as a "devout Mormon" posed nude in the August 1984 issue of Playboy magazine.)


July 27, 1978 -
National Lampoon's Animal House, the grandfather of all gross-out comedies, premiered in New York City on thus date.



Toga, toga, toga. This was Kevin Bacon and Karen Allen's first movie.


Here's your Today in History:
July 27 1890 -
At the Chateau d'Auvers, Vincent van Gogh presses a revolver to his chest and pulls the trigger. Somehow the bullet misses the vital organs, and the painter manages to stumble over to a friend's house.



The following night, Van Gogh dies of an infection in the arms of his brother Theo.



July 27 1940 -
Bugs Bunny made his debut in a cartoon called "A Wild Hare", on this day. Warner Brothers' writers and animators set out to make a rabbit who would be the epitome of cool. They modeled bugs on Groucho Marx with a carrot instead of a cigar. Mel Blanc gave him a Brooklyn accent.



He was a nonchalant rabbit who chewed on his carrot in the face of all of his enemies and he was famous for the line, "What's up, doc?" which he used in that first cartoon when he met Elmer Fudd who was hunting rabbits. I'd like to send out a great big birthday kiss to that wascally wabbit. Happy 69th Bugs.


July 27, 1953 -
The armistice that ended the Korean War was signed today. It was a war that began in June 1950 when North Korea invaded the south. Almost 35,000 Americans were killed in the conflict, more than 5,000 captured or went missing. A corporal in the 1st Marine Division named Anthony Ebron said, "Those last few days were pretty bloody. Each time we thought the war was over we'd go out and fight again. The day it ended we shot off so much artillery that the ground shook. Then, that night, the noise just stopped. We knew it was over."



Harry Truman said that if he had signed the same armistice, the Republicans would have drawn and quartered him, but Dwight D. Eisenhower had run for president on the platform that he would end the war, and when he was elected, that's what he did.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to inform the North Koreans that they, in fact, signed the armistice and are still technically at war with someone.

July 27 1980 -
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the exiled Shah of Iran, dies of lymphatic cancer in Cairo.



Everyone looks just a little more guilty standing next to Nixon.


July 27 1996 -
During a celebration for the Atlanta Olympics, security guard Richard Jewell notices a suspicious green knapsack in Centennial Park. He immediately alerts police and helps to clear people from the area shortly before the pipe bomb explodes. For his trouble, Jewell becomes the FBI's preliminary suspect and news organizations run wild with the story.



Because he didn't do it, numerous media outlets end up paying him large undisclosed settlements. Also, the FBI uses the event as an excuse to lobby for further clampdowns on civil liberties.


And so it goes.