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19831776 Club

Madonna's debut album lands in stores

A dance-club regular with a demo tape lands a Billboard top-ten single.

By the summer of 1983, disco was dead and dance-pop was still finding its footing on American radio. Madonna Louise Ciccone, who had arrived in New York five years earlier with 35 dollars in her pocket, released her self-titled debut on Sire Records on July 27. The album climbed to number eight on the Billboard 200 and produced two top-ten singles, "Borderline" and "Lucky Star," while "Holiday" became her breakthrough. It went on to sell an estimated 10 million copies worldwide…

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More from July 27
1953

Armistice ends the fighting in Korea; the peace that follows is only a truce

Two years of talks end in a tent at Panmunjom, but South Korea's own president will not put his name on it.
1789

Washington signs the first agency of the new government into law

A department to handle foreign affairs becomes the executive branch's opening act under the Constitution.
1974

Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11: Nixon obstructed justice

Six Republicans join every Democrat on the panel, three days after the Supreme Court ordered the tapes handed over.
16631776 Club
Foreign ships lose the colonial trade, and Dutch merchants lose the most.
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Read the full July 27 edition →Everything that happened on July 27 →
More from Cold War America
1950

Gaetjens heads it in; the US beats England, 1–0, in Belo Horizonte

Borghi shuts out the sport's reigning aristocracy; the American squad includes a hearse driver, a schoolteacher, and men who trained together exactly once.
1956

Eisenhower signs the highway act; 41,000 miles of interstate and $25 billion set in motion

The president who crossed the country on rutted Army roads in 1919 authorizes the largest public works project the nation has yet attempted.
1946

Blandy detonates the bomb over Bikini; the target fleet survives, and the Navy claims vindication

Test Able misses its aim point by 2,130 feet, scattering results that disappoint the Navy's critics but settle nothing about the weapon's power at sea.
1964

Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act; King watches as a year's promise becomes law

The bill survived 72 days of Senate delay to pass 73 to 27, outlawing discrimination by race, sex, religion, and national origin in schools, workplaces, and public accommodations.
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