On This Day: Wednesday July 27, 2005 This is the 208th day of the year, with 157 days remaining in 2005. Fact of the Day: Korean War A conflict between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) began in 1945 and at least 2.5 million persons lost their lives before it was over. The war reached international proportions in June 1950 when North Korea, supplied and advised by the Soviet Union, invaded the South. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal participant, joined the war on the side of South Korea, and the People's Republic of China fought for North Korea. The fighting ended in July 1953 with Korea still divided into two hostile states. Negotiations in 1954 produced no further agreement, and the front line has been accepted ever since as the de facto boundary between North and South Korea. Holidays Feast day of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, St. Theobald of Marly, the Martyrs of Salsette, Saints Aurelia, Natalia and their Companions, and St. Pantaleon. National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day. Events 1789 - Congress established the Department of Foreign Affairs, the forerunner of the Department of State. 1794 - Maximilien Robespierre, the architect of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, was overthrown and arrested by the National Convention. 1866 - Cyrus W. Field finally succeeded in laying the first underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe. 1921 - Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and Charles Best successfully isolated insulin. 1940 - Bugs Bunny made his debut in the animated cartoon "A Wild Hare." 1953 - Representatives of the United Nations, Korea, and China signed the Korean War armistice at Panmunjon, Korea. 1976 - Air Force veteran Ray Brennan became the first person to die of so-called "Legionnaire's Disease" following an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. 1995 - The Korean War Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., by President Bill Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young-sam. 1996 - In Atlanta, Georgia, the XXVI Summer Olympiad was disrupted by the explosion of a nail-laden pipe bomb in Centennial Olympic Park, which killed one and injured more than 100. Births 1824 - Alexandre (Dumas Fils) Dumas, French novelist and playwright. 1906 - Leo Durocher, American baseball player, manager. 1916 - Keenan Wynn, American actor. 1922 - Norman Lear, American Emmy Award-winning producer. Deaths 1946 - Gertude Stein, avant-garde American novelist and poet. 2003 - Bob Hope, British-born American comedian and actor.