August 28: Encyclopedia - August 28

August 28

August 28 is the 240th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (241st in leap years), with 125 days remaining.

August 28 - Events

• 475 - The Pannonian general Orestes forces western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos to flee his capital of Ravenna and appoints Romulus Augustus in his place.
• 489 - Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths defeats Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy.
• 1521 - The Turks occupy Belgrade
• 1542 - Reinforced with at least 600 arquebusiers and cavalry, Imam Ahmad Gragn attacks the Portuguese camp in the Battle of Wofla. The Portuguese are scattered, their leader Christovão da Gama captured and afterwards executed.
• 1565 - St. Augustine, Florida, established. It is the oldest surviving European settlement in the United States.
• 1609 - Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.
• 1619 - Ferdinand II is elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
• 1830 - The Tom Thumb presages the first railway service in the United States.
• 1845 - Scientific American magazine publishes its first issue
• 1849 - After a month-long siege, Venice, which had declared itself independent, surrenders to Austria.
• 1850 - Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin premieres in Weimar, Germany.
• 1862 - Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the battle of Second Manassas
• 1867 - The United States occupies Midway Island.
• 1879 - Cetshwayo, last king of the Zulus, is captured by the British.
• 1884 - First known photograph of a tornado is made.
• 1898 - Caleb Bradham renames his carbonated soft drink "Pepsi-Cola".
• 1913 - Queen Wilhelmina opens the Peace Palace in The Hague.
• 1914 - The British fleet beats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.
• 1916 - Germany declares war on Romania.
• 1916 - Italy declares war on Germany.
• 1917 - Ten suffragists are arrested when picketing the White House.
• 1937 - Toyota Motors becomes an independent company
• 1943 - In Denmark, a general strike against the Nazi occupation is started.
• 1944 - Marseille and Toulon are liberated.
• 1953 - Nippon Television broadcasts Japan's first television show, including its first TV advertisement.
• 1955 - Black Mississippian Emmett Till is murdered, allegedly for whistling to a white woman and calling her baby.
• 1963 - During a 200,000-person civil rights rally in at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his famous I have a dream speech.
• 1964 - The Philadelphia race riot began.
• 1968 - Riots in Chicago, Illinois, during the Democratic National Convention
• 1971 - The dollar is allowed to float against the yen for the first time.
• 1972 - During the Olympic Games in Munich, Mark Spitz gets his first of seven gold medals in swimming events.
• 1975 - Missionary Armand Doll is imprisoned in Mozambique by Marxist extremists.
• 1979 - An IRA bomb explodes on the Great Market in Brussels.
• 1981 - The National Centers for Disease Control announce a high incidence of Pneumocystis and Kaposi's sarcoma in gay men. Soon, these will be recognized as symptoms of an immune disorder, which will be called AIDS.
• 1986 - Stage of siege declared in Bolivia.
• 1986 - US Navy officer Jerry A. Whitworth is sentenced to 365 years imprisonment for espionage for the Soviet Union.
• 1988 - At an air show in Ramstein, West Germany, three stunt fighters collide; 69 people die.
• 1990 - Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province.
• 1990 - The Plainfield Tornado: An F5 tornado hits in Plainfield, Illinois, and Joliet, Illinois, killing 28 people.
• 1991 - A drunk motorman speeds into the Union Square station on the No. 4 line in New York City. The train derails on the curve, killing six passengers and injuring dozens.
• 1993 - A dam breaks in Qinghai, China. 223 die.
• 1993 - 76 die in an airplane crash in Tajikistan.
• 1993 - Ong Teng Cheong elected president of Singapore
• 1994 - First Japanese gay pride march.
• 1995 - A mortar shell kills 38 people in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
• 1996 - Britain's Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales, are divorced.
• 1998 - Pakistan's National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the "Qur'an and Sunnah" the "supreme law" but the bill is defeated in the Senate.
• 2001 - Dutch prime minister Wim Kok announces that he will not be available for another term as PvdA party leader or prime minister after the 2002 elections.
• 2005 - A mandatory evacuation is ordered by New Orleans, Louisiana mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco as Hurricane Katrina moved nearer to Louisiana.

August 28 - Births

• 1025 - Emperor Go-Reizei of Japan (d. 1068)
• 1582 (O.S.) - Taichang Emperor, of the Ming dynasty of China (d. 1620)
• 1592 - George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, English statesman (d. 1628)
• 1612 - Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn, Dutch scholar (d. 1653)
• 1714 - Anthony Ulrich II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (d. 1774)
• 1749 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and scientist (d. 1832)
• 1774 - Elizabeth Ann Seton, first American-born Catholic saint (d. 1821)
• 1814 - Sheridan le Fanu, Irish writer (d. 1873)
• 1828 (O.S.) - Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer (d. 1910)
• 1849 - Benjamin Godard, French composer (d. 1895)
• 1867 - Umberto Giordano, Italian composer (d. 1948)
• 1878 - George Whipple, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)
• 1894 - Karl Böhm, Austrian conductor (d. 1981)
• 1897 - Charles Boyer, French actor (d. 1978)
• 1903 - Bruno Bettelheim, American psychologist (d. 1990)
• 1904 - Secondo Campini, Italian jet engine pioneer (d. 1980)
• 1906 - John Betjeman, English poet (d. 1984)
• 1908 - Roger Tory Peterson, American ornithologist and illustrator (d. 1996)
• 1910 - Tjalling Koopmans, Dutch economist, Bank of Sweden Prize winner (d. 1985)
• 1911 - Joseph Luns, Dutch politician (d. 2002)
• 1913 - Robertson Davies, Canadian writer (d. 1995)
• 1913 - Richard Tucker, American tenor (d. 1975)
• 1916 - Jack Vance, American author
• 1917 - Jack Kirby, American comic book artist (d. 1994)
• 1919 - Godfrey Hounsfield, English electrical engineer and inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
• 1919 - Gyula Várady, Hungarian footballer (d. 2002)
• 1924 - Janet Frame, New Zealand author
• 1924 - Peggy Ryan, American actress (d. 2004)
• 1925 - Donald O'Connor, American singer, dancer, and actor (d. 2003)
• 1929 - Istvan Kertesz, Hungarian conductor (d. 1973)
• 1930 - Ben Gazzara, American actor
• 1931 - John Shirley-Quirk, English bass-baritone
• 1938 - Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada
• 1938 - Maurizio Costanzo, Italian television journalist
• 1941 - Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, Belgian aristocrat
• 1942 - Sterling Morrison, American guitarist (The Velvet Underground) (d. 1995)
• 1943 - David Soul, American actor
• 1943 - Lou Piniella, baseball manager
• 1944 - Marianne Heemskerk, Dutch swimmer
• 1947 - Liza Wang, Hong Kong actress
• 1957 - Daniel Stern, American actor
• 1957 - Rick Rossovich, American actor
• 1958 - Scott Hamilton, American figure skater
• 1960 - Emma Samms, English actress
• 1961 - Kim Appleby, British singer
• 1965 - Shania Twain, Canadian singer
• 1966 - René Higuita, Colombian football goalkeeper
• 1968 - Billy Boyd, Scottish actor
• 1969 - Jason Priestley, Canadian actor
• 1969 - Jack Black, American actor and musician
• 1971 - Janet Evans, American swimmer
• 1978 - Jess Margera, American drummer
• 1979 - Robert Hoyzer, German football referee
• 1981 - Martin Erat, Czech hockey player
• 1982 - LeAnn Rimes, American singer

August 28 - Deaths

• 430 - Augustine of Hippo, North African saint and theologian (b. 354)
• 1341 - King Leo V of Armenia (murdered) (b. 1309)
• 1481 - King Afonso V of Portugal (b. 1432)
• 1645 - Hugo Grotius, Dutch philosopher and writer (b. 1583)
• 1654 - Axel Oxenstierna, Lord High Chancellor of Sweden (b. 1583)
• 1678 - John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, English soldier (b. 1602)
• 1757 - David Hartley, English philosopher (b. 1705)
• 1784 - Junípero Serra, Spanish Franciscan missionary (b. 1713)
• 1785 - Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, French sculptor (b. 1714)
• 1793 - Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine, French general (executed) (b. 1740)
• 1805 - Alexander Carlyle, Scottish church leader (b. 1722)
• 1818 - Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, founder of Chicago
• 1839 - William Smith, English geologist (b. 1769)
• 1900 - Henry Sidgwick, English philosopher (b. 1838)
• 1903 - Frederick Law Olmsted, American landscape architect (b. 1822)
• 1919 - Louis Botha, Boer leader (b. 1862)
• 1943 - King Boris III of Bulgaria (b. 1894)
• 1959 - Bohuslav Martinů, Romanian composer (b. 1890)
• 1965 - Giulio Racah, Israeli physicist (b. 1909)
• 1975 - Fritz Wotruba, Austrian sculptor (b. 1907)
• 1981 - Béla Guttman, Hungarian footballer (b. 1900)
• 1985 - Ruth Gordon, American actress (b. 1896)
• 1987 - John Huston, American movie director (b. 1906)
• 1990 - Willy Vandersteen, Belgian cartoonist (b. 1913)
• 1993 - William Stafford, American writer (b. 1914)
• 1995 - Michael Ende, German writer (b. 1929)
• 2005 - Esther Szekeres, Hungarian mathematician
• 2005 - George Szekeres, Hungarian mathematican (b. 1911)

August 28 - Holidays and observances

• Hong Kong: Liberation Day (1945)
• Many Christian churches: feast day of Saint Augustine of Hippo.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "August 28", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki