Brzeg, Poland) (d. 2015) Tuesday, July 19, 1927 Pan American Airways was awarded its first flight route, signing the contract to transport American mail between Key West and Havana. Flights began on October 19, meeting the three-month deadline called for in the agreement. "Pan Am" would grow to become one of the world's largest airlines before going bankrupt in 1991. Died: Sheikh Amadou Bamba, 74, Senegalese Muslim religious leader and founder of the Murid Order Zhao Shiyan, 26, Chinese Communist official, was executed after being captured by Nationalist forces. Wednesday, July 20, 1927 King Ferdinand of Romania, who had reigned since 1914, died at 2:15 am at his palace in Sinaia after a battle with cancer. At 6:00 pm, his 5-year-old grandson, was proclaimed as the new monarch, King Michael I. A regency council, headed by Prince Nicholas, was appointed to act on the boy king's behalf during his childhood. The French Olympic Committee, lacking funds, voted not to send a team to the 1928 games scheduled for Amsterdam. French perfume magnate François Coty would come to the team's rescue by loaning one million francs to the committee. Germany and Japan established closer ties by the signing of a trade treaty in Tokyo between the two nations, by Ambassador Wilhelm Solf and Japan's Prime Minister, Baron Tanaka. Born: Leon C. Hirsch, American inventor of the Auto Suture surgical stapler, and founder of United States Surgical Corporation; in the Bronx, New York City Barbara Bergmann, American economist; in the Bronx, New York City (d. 2015) Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Soviet dissident and Russian human rights activist; in Yevpatoria, Crimean ASSR, Soviet Union (d. 2018) Thursday, July 21, 1927 Before a crowd of 90,000 at New York's Yankee Stadium, former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, 32, fought with Jack Sharkey to determine who would be the challenger in a September bout against champion Gene Tunney. Sharkey was winning after six rounds. As the 7th began, Dempsey struck two low body blows to Sharkey, who turned toward referee Jack O'Sullivan to complain of a foul. When Sharkey turned his head, Dempsey struck him in the jaw with a short left hook and knocked him out. The Ford Motor Company took steps toward the creation of Fordlândia, by spending $8,000,000 to buy 1,000,000 hectares (2,470,000 acres or 3,861 square miles) of land in Brazil's Pará State, in return for a 50-year tax exemption and full legal