December 28
December 28 is the 362nd day of the year (363rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 3 days remaining.
Events
- 418 - St. Boniface I becomes Pope
- 1065 - Westminster Abbey is consecrated.
- 1832 - John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign.
- 1836 - South Australia and Adelaide are founded
- 1836 - Spain recognizes independence of Mexico.
- 1846 - Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.
- 1879 - The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passed over it, killing 75.
- 1895 - The Lumiere brothers have their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines -- this date is commonly considered the debut of the cinema.
- 1897 - The play Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, premieres in Paris.
- 1902 - The first indoor professional American football game is played in New York City at Madison Square Garden.
- 1908 - An earthquake rocks Messina, Sicily killing over 75,000.
- 1937 - The Irish Free State becomes the Republic of Ireland.
- 1945 - The United States Congress officially recognizes the Pledge of Allegiance
- 1950 - The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park.
- 1973 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn publishes Gulag Archipelago.
- 1981 - The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born (Norfolk, Virginia).
- 1991 - Nine are crushed while a crowd pushes their way into a basketball game at City College of New York.
- 1991 - Sonic the Hedgehog Game Gear version is released in Japan.
- 1995 - CompuServe sets a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups after being pressured by German prosecutors.
- 1998 - Claudia Benton of West University Place, Texas is murdered in her home by Angel Maturino Resendiz. This is Angel's third victim in his third incident.
- 2003 - Following a series of long, intimate, and wonderful phone calls, Abhishek Patel finally sums up enough gusto and tells Naeha Chaudhry that he likes her. He remembers this day as the most rewarding day in his life. She remembers it as being the day when he said to her, "I want to be with you". The world stopped, for this was the day it was introduced to the greatest love it had ever seen.
Births
- 1856 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (d. 1924)
- 1879 - Billy Mitchell, military aviation pioneer (d. 1936)
- 1882 - Arthur Eddington, astronomer and physicist (d. 1944)
- 1888 - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, film director (d. 1931)
- 1899 - Eugeniusz Bodo, famous Polish actor (killed in 1943)
- 1902 - Mortimer Adler, philosopher (d. 1902)
- 1903 - John von Neumann, mathematician (d. 1957)
- 1903 - Earl "Fatha" Hines, jazz musician (d. 1983)
- 1905 - Cliff Arquette, actor, comedian ("Charley Weaver") (d. 1974)
- 1908 - Lew Ayres, actor (d. 1996)
- 1922 - Stan Lee, comic book writer
- 1925 - Hildegard Knef, actress, singer and writer (d. 2002)
- 1929 - Owen Bieber, labor leader
- 1929 - Brian Redhead, journalist and broadcaster (d. 1994)
- 1932 - Roy Hattersley, British politician
- 1932 - Manuel Puig, writer (d. 1990)
- 1933 - Nichelle Nichols, actress and singer
- 1934 - Maggie Smith, actress
- 1946 - Edgar Winter, musician
- 1949 - Jack Lovelock, New Zealand athlete
- 1953 - Richard Clayderman, pianist
- 1954 - Denzel Washington, actor
- 1969 - Linus Torvalds, programmer and initiator of Linux
- 1971 - Frank Sepe, bodybuilder and male model
Deaths
- 1694 - Queen Mary II of England (b. 1662)
- 1916 - Eduard Strauss, composer (b. 1835)
- 1918 - Olavo Bilac, poet (b. 1865)
- 1937 - Maurice Ravel, composer (b. 1875)
- 1938 - Florence Lawrence, Hollywood's first "star" (b. 1886)
- 1945 - Theodore Dreiser, author (b. 1871)
- 1947 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (b. 1869)
- 1952 - Fletcher Henderson, jazz musician (b. 1897)
- 1963 - Paul Hindemith, German composer (b. 1895)
- 1967 - Katharine McCormick, U.S. women's rights activist
- 1981 - Allan Dwan, pioneer film director (b. 1885)
- 1983 - William Demarest, actor
- 1983 - Jimmy Demaret, golf champion (b. 1910)
- 1983 - Dennis Wilson, musician ("The Beach Boys") (b. 1944)
- 1984 - Sam Peckinpah, film director (b. 1925)
- 1986 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian movie director (b. 1932)
- 1998 - Claudia Benton, Child Psychologist
- 1999 - Clayton Moore, actor (The Lone Ranger)
- 2001 - William X. Kienzle, novelist
- 2003 - Dinsdale Landen, actor (b. 1932)
Holidays and observances
- The fourth day of Christmas in Western Christianity.
- Massacre of the Saint Innocents Catholic, Anglican; in Mexico and Spain el Día de los Santos Inocentes is a day of practical jokes, in the same spirit as April Fool's Day.
- Proclamation Day (South Australian public holiday), for the foundation of the Australian state of South Australia
December 27 - December 29 - November 28 - January 28 -- listing of all days