LANE: Welcome back to Touring History, where we make the past more interesting than your neighbor's home renovation stories. I'm Lane.
DAVE: And I'm Dave, still processing that people used to think bathing was unhealthy. Really explains why medieval times smelled like a gym sock convention.
LANE: Today we're exploring July 27th, a date that's given us ceasefire agreements, medical breakthroughs, and some truly spectacular displays of human ambition.
DAVE: Speaking of July 27th, we got a voice memo from a listener. Sezso, take it away.
SEZSO (as listener): [Excited, slightly breathless voice] Hey Lane and Dave! July 27th is my favorite day because it's when I finally beat my dad at chess for the first time - I was 23 years old! He'd been destroying me since I was six, and I was starting to think he was some kind of chess wizard. Turns out he'd been letting me get close on purpose for years just to keep me interested. When I finally won legitimately, he bought me a beer and said "Took you long enough." Best father-son moment ever. Now we're tied at 847 games each. Yes, we keep track. Don't judge us!
LANE: That's actually really sweet. Seventeen years of strategic parenting through chess defeats.
DAVE: The fact that you keep an exact count is both adorable and slightly concerning. But mostly adorable!
LANE: Let's celebrate some July 27th birthdays! We've got Maya Rudolph, comedy genius who somehow made weather reporting hilarious on SNL and continues to be perfect in everything she touches.
DAVE: Also born today: Alex Rodriguez, who hit 696 home runs and somehow made baseball statistics feel like soap opera drama. And Bobbie Gentry, who wrote "Ode to Billie Joe" and created country music's most mysterious storyline.
LANE: Can't forget Norman Lear, born July 27th, 1922. Television legend who gave us "All in the Family," "The Jeffersons," and basically taught America how to laugh at its own prejudices.
DAVE: Plus he lived to 101, proving that making people think while they laugh is apparently the secret to longevity.
DAVE: Scandal time! July 27th, 1921, researchers in Toronto successfully isolated insulin for the first time. But here's where it gets salacious - they immediately started human trials without any of the safety protocols we'd require today.
LANE: Wait, how is life-saving medical research scandalous?
DAVE: Because Frederick Banting and Charles Best basically said "Let's inject this dog pancreas extract into diabetic patients and see what happens!" The first human test subject was a 14-year-old boy who was literally dying, so they figured they had nothing to lose.
LANE: That's more "medical desperation" than scandal, Dave.
DAVE: The scandalous part is that it worked! They saved the kid's life, revolutionized diabetes treatment, and Banting became the youngest Nobel Prize winner ever. But they completely bypassed what we'd now call "ethics committees" and just went for it.
LANE: So it's the ultimate "ask for forgiveness, not permission" medical breakthrough?
DAVE: Exactly! Sometimes the most important discoveries come from people who are willing to ignore bureaucracy when lives are on the line. Though please don't try this at home.
LANE: Innovation time! July 27th, 1953, the Korean War armistice was signed, which was basically humanity's first attempt at saying "Let's agree to disagree" on an international scale.
DAVE: That's diplomacy, not innovation, Lane.
LANE: Hear me out! The Korean armistice created the Demilitarized Zone, which accidentally became one of the world's most important wildlife preserves. Seventy years of no human interference turned a war zone into an ecological paradise.
DAVE: So you're saying the innovation was "accidentally creating nature reserves through international tension"?
LANE: Pretty much! Also on July 27th, 1866, the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable was completed, basically creating the internet's great-great-grandfather. Suddenly you could send a message from London to New York in minutes instead of weeks.
DAVE: Which probably led to history's first "new phone, who dis?" situation, except with telegrams.
LANE: "NEW CABLE WHO DIS STOP REGARDS LONDON STOP"
LANE: Let's talk about The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, where they've been perfecting the art of cheese curation since 1967.
DAVE: They're still celebrating the return of Bava Brothers to their shelves, and honestly, if you haven't tried authentic Calabrian sopressata, you're basically doing charcuterie wrong.
LANE: Bava Brothers uses a 4th generation family recipe that started in Calabria, Italy. We're talking heritage pork mixed with red chili pepper, paprika, and fennel seeds, aged for a month and pressed for two weeks. It's not just salami - it's edible history.
DAVE: Plus their 'Nduja Calabrese spread is basically spicy, spreadable perfection. Mix it with sun-dried tomatoes and garlic, and suddenly your regular Tuesday night dinner becomes a celebration.
LANE: Visit cheesestore.com or their Beverly Hills location. With over 600 cheese varieties plus the return of Bava Brothers, your taste buds are about to get a serious education.
DAVE: The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills: Where every meal becomes a masterpiece and your refrigerator becomes embarrassingly inadequate.
LANE: Deep thoughts time. Dave, what's July 27th teaching us about humanity?
DAVE: July 27th shows that humans are basically problem-solving machines who don't let rules get in the way of progress. Diabetes is killing people? Let's inject dog pancreas juice into kids. Need to talk to someone across an ocean? Let's run a cable through the bottom of the Atlantic.
LANE: My deep thought is that July 27th proves that sometimes the best solutions come from desperate circumstances. Whether it's medical breakthroughs or diplomatic innovations, humans get creative when the stakes are highest.
DAVE: So your deep thought is "necessity breeds innovation"?
LANE: Exactly. Your deep thought is "humans don't read instruction manuals, they just start building stuff."
DAVE: And somehow it usually works out! Though I'm still not sure how we convinced fish not to chew through that telegraph cable.
LANE: Pretty sure fish weren't the biggest concern with underwater cables, Dave.
DAVE: Well, they should have been! Have you seen what fish do to everything else?
LANE: That's July 27th - proving that sometimes the best innovations come from people who are too busy solving problems to worry about proper procedures.
DAVE: Thanks for touring history with us! Like, subscribe, and send us your voice memos about dates that matter to you. Father-son chess rivalries are exactly the kind of personal history we love.
LANE: Until next time, remember: history is just humans improvising solutions and hoping they don't accidentally destroy everything.
DAVE: This has been Touring History. I'm Dave.
LANE: I'm Lane.
BOTH: See you in the past!