On this day in History - Dec. 28

• 0300 - Theonas dies. Patriarch of Alexandria
• 0418 - St. Boniface I becomes Pope.
• 1065 -Westminster Abbey consecrated.
• 1164 - Emperor Rokujo of Japan was born (d. 1176)
• 1308 - The reign of Emperor Hanazono, emperor of Japan, begins.
• 1367 - Ashikaga Yoshiakira dies (b. 1330). Japanese shogun.
• 1446 - Antipope Clement VIII dies.
• 1484 - Joachim Vadianus [von Watt] was born; Swiss physician/mayor of Sankt Gallen.
• 1503 - Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici dies (b. 1471). Ruler of Florence.
• 1522 - Margaret of Austria was born (d. 1583). Regent of the Netherlands.
• 1558 - Hermann Finck dies (b. 1527). German composer.
• 1612 - Galileo Galilei was the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune when it was in conjunction with Jupiter, yet he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star because of its extremely slow motion along the ecliptic at that time. Neptune was not truly discovered until 1846, about 234 years after Galileo first sighted it with his telescope.
• 1619 - Antoine Furetière was born (d. 1688). French writer.
• 1622 - Francis de Sales dies (b. 1567). French bishop of Geneva, writer and saint.
• 1655 - Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis was born (d. 1698). First Lord of the British Admiralty
• 1663 - Francesco Maria Grimaldi dies (b. 1618). Italian mathematician and physicist .
• 1665 - George FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland was born (d. 1716). English general.
• 1671 - Johann Friedrich Gronovius dies (b. 1611). German classical scholar.
• 1694 - Mary II of England died of smallpox in London at age 32, after five years of joint rule with her husband, King William III.
• 1703 - Mustafa II dies (b. 1664). Ottoman Sultan
• 1706 - Pierre Bayle dies (b. 1647). French philosopher.
• 1708 - Joseph Pitton de Tournefort dies (b. 1656). French botanist.
• 1715 - William Carstares dies (b. 1649). Scottish minister.
• 1734 - Rob Roy dies (b. 1671). Outlaw known as the Scottish Robin Hood.
• 1736 - Antonio Caldara dies (b. 1670). Italian composer.
• 1763 - John Molson was born (d. 1836). English-born Canadian brewer (Molson Brewery).
• 1775 - João Domingos Bomtempo was born (d. 1842). Portuguese oboist
• 1777 - Alexander I - Russia was born. Czar de Russia.
• 1778 - Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki was born (d. 1846). Polish politician.
• 1795 - Eugenio Espejo dies (b. 1747). Ecuadorian scientist.
• 1798 -Thomas Henderson was born (died 23-Nov-1844). Scottish astronomer who, as royal astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope (1831-33), was the first to measure the parallax of a star (Alpha Centauri).
• 1814 - Sir John Bennet Lawes was born (d. 31-Aug-1900), (1st Baronet) English agronomist who founded the artificial fertilizer industry and Rothamsted Experimental Station, the oldest agricultural research station in the world.
• 1829 - Jean-Baptiste Lamarck dies (b. 1744). French scientist.
• 1832 - John C. Calhoun became the first vice president in U.S. history to resign from office.
• 1835 - Osceola led his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the U.S. Army.
• 1836 - Spain recognizes independence of Mexico.
• 1836 - South Australia and Adelaide are founded.
• 1842 - Calixa Lavallée was born (d. 1891). French Canadian composer (O Canada).
• 1846 - Iowa became the 29th state in the United States.
• 1852 - Leonardo Torres Quevedo was born at Santa Cruz de Iruña, Santander. Spanish scientist and inventor.
• 1855 - Juan Zorrilla de San Martin was born. Uruguay's diplomat/poet (Tabar)
• 1856 - Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia. 28th President of the United States (d. 1924); He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919.
• 1859 - Thomas Macaulay dies (b. 1800). British poet, historian, and politician.
• 1861 - Se funda la ciudad de Mulchen en Chile.
• 1861 - Autoproclamación como Rey de la Araucania de Orélie-Antoine.
• 1862 - Joaquim Casimiro Júnior dies (b. 30 May 1808). Portuguese composer.
• 1866 - Szymon Askenazy was born (d. 1935). Polish historian, diplomat and politician.
• 1867 - U.S. claims Midway Island, first territory annexed outside Continental limits.
• 1869 - William F. Semple patented chewing gum. See The History of Chewing Gum and Bubble Gum (in About).
• 1872 - James Van Ness dies (b. 1808). Mayor of San Francisco (1855-1856).
• 1877 - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov dies (b. 1821). Russian poet.
• 1878 - Jose Bernardo Alcedo dies (b. 1788) . Peruvian composer.
• 1878 - Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Quod apostolici muneris (socialism).
• 1879 - The Tay Bridge Disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passed over it, killing 75.
• 1879 - Billy Mitchell was born (d. 1936). American military aviation pioneer.
• 1882 - Sir Arthur Eddington was born (d. 1944). English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician who did his greatest work in astrophysics, investigating the motion, internal structure, and evolution of stars.
• 1888 - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was born ( †11 Mar 1931). German fillm producer. After graduating in dramatic arts, he founded the Murnau-Veidt Filmgesellschaft and shot his first film, "Der Knabe in Blau" (“The Blue Boy”). In 1922 he produced "Nosferatu", a film that became one of the most important silent film works.
• 1889 - Tereza Cristina dies in Porto, Portugal. Brazilian Emperess
• 1892 - Alfred Irving Hallowell was born; a U.S. cultural anthropologist known for his work on the North American Indians.
• 1894 - Alfred Sherwood Romer, was born (died 5 Nov 1973). U.S. paleontologist widely known for his concepts of evolutionary history of vertebrate animals.
• 1895 - The Lumiere Brothers gave the first commercial movie show at the Grand Cafe in Paris.
• 1897 - The play Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, premieres in Paris.
• 1898 - Carl-Gustaf Rossby was born (d. 1957). Swedish meteorologist.
• 1899 - Eugeniusz Bodo was born (d. 1943). Polish actor.
• 1900 - Alexandre Alberto da Rocha de Serpa Pinto dies (b. 1846). Portuguese explorer.
• 1902 - The first indoor professional American football game is played in New York City at Madison Square Garden.
• 1902 - Mortimer Adler was born (d. 2001). American philosopher.
• 1902 - Shen Congwen was born (d. 1988). Chinese writer.
• 1903 - John von Neumann was born (d. 1957). Hungarian-born Mathematician (Bocher Award 1938).
• 1903 - Earl "Fatha" Hines was born (d. 1983). American musician.
• 1903 - French Congo is split into Ubangi-Shari, Chad, Gabon, and Middle Congo.
• 1905 - Cliff Arquette was born (d. 1974). American actor and comedian.
• 1906 - Ecuador adopts its constitution.
• 1908 - Elvira Vargas Rivera was born (d. 1967). Mexican journalist.
• 1908 - Lew Ayres was born (d. 1996). American actor.
• 1908 - An earthquake rocks Messina, Sicily killing over 75,000.
• 1912 - The first municipally owned streetcars take to the streets in San Francisco.
• 1913 - Lou Jacobi was born. Canadian actor
• 1915 - Pops Staples was born (d. 2000). American musician (The Staple Singers)
• 1916 - Eduard Strauss dies (b. 1835). Austrian composer.
• 1917 - the New York Evening Mail published a facetious — as well as fictitious — essay by H.L. Mencken on the history of bathtubs in America.
• 1918 - Olavo Bilac dies (b. 1865). Brazilian poet.
• 1919 - Johannes Rydberg dies (b. 1854). Swedish physicist.
• 1922 - Stan Lee was born. American comic book writer.
• 1922 - Mariana Rey Monteiro was born. Portuguese actress.
• 1924 - Milton Obote was born (d. 2005). President of Uganda.
• 1924 - Léon Bakst dies (b. 1866). Russian artist.
• 1925 - Hildegard Knef was born (d. 2002). German actress, singer and writer.
• 1927 - Ernesto de la Cárcova dies in Buenos Aires (b. 3 Mar 1866). Argentine painter "Sin pan y sin trabajo" (1894).
• 1928 - Moe Koffman was born (d. 2001). Canadian jazz musician.
• 1929 - Terry Sawchuk was born (d. 1970). Canadian hockey player.
• 1929 - Brian Redhead was born (d. 1994). English journalist and broadcaster.
• 1931 - Guy Debord was born (d. 1994). Member of the Lettrist International, Socialisme ou Barbarie and a founder and chief essayist of the Situationist International.
• 1932 - Dhirubhai Ambani was born (d. 2002). Indian businessman.
• 1932 - Manuel Puig was born (d. 1990). Argentine writer (Blood of Requited Love).
• 1932 - Roy Hattersley was born. British politician.
• 1932 - Dorsey Burnette was born (d. 1979). American singer.
• 1932 - Harry Howell was born. National Hockey League defenceman
• 1932 - Jack Blackham dies (b. 1854). Australian cricketer.
• 1933 - Nichelle Nichols was born. American actress and singer.
• 1934 - Maggie Smith was born. English actress (Death on Nile, Clash of Titans)
• 1934 - Yujiro Ishihara was born (d. 1987). Japanese actor.
• 1934 - Pablo Gargallo dies. Spanish sculptor known for his figures sculpted from iron and other metals.
• 1935 - Fernando Lopes was born at Maçãs de D. Maria, Alvaiazere. Portuguese film director (Belarmino - 1964, O Encoberto - 1975, Crónica dos Bons Malandros -1984, Matar Saudades -1988, O Delfim - 2002... )
• 1936 - Jacques Mesrine was born (d. 1979). French criminal.
• 1936 - Abílio Diniz was born. Brazilian entrepreneur
• 1937 - A primeira Constituição da República da Irlanda é estabelecida. Na época, o primeiro-ministro era Eamon de Valera, fundador do Exército Republicano Irlandês (IRA).
• 1937 - Ratan Tata was born. Indian industrialist.
• 1937 - Pinto da Costa was born. President of FC Porto
• 1937 - Maurice Ravel dies in Paris (b. 1875). Swiss/French composer (Bolero).
• 1938 - Charles Neville was born. American musician (Neville Brothers)
• 1938 - Florence Lawrence dies (b. 1886). American actress.
• 1939 - First flight of the Consolidated XB-24 "Liberator" bomber prototype.
• 1940 - Don Francisco was born. Chilean TV host
• 1941 - Starts the Operation Anthropoid (the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague).
• 1943 - Richard Whiteley was born (d. 2005). British television presenter.
• 1943 - David Peterson was born. Canadian politician, Premier of Ontario
• 1943 - Steve Evans dies (b. 1885). Baseball player.
• 1944 - Kary Mullis was born. American chemist, cowinner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1993) for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
• 1945 - Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.
• 1945 - Theodore Dreiser dies (b. 1871). American author.
• 1946 - Edgar Winter was born. American musician.
• 1946 - Pierre Falardeau was born. Quebec film director
• 1947 - Aurelio Rodríguez was born (d. 2000). Mexican baseball player.
• 1947 - Wynonie Harris records "Good Rockin' Tonight".
• 1947 - Victor Emmanuel III, king of Italy (1900-46) and Ethiopia, dies at 78 /Victor Manuel III, último rei de Itália, morreu em Alexandria, Egipto, no exílio. Rei desde 1900, devido ao assassinato do seu pai, nomeou Mussolini primeiro ministro, não tendo sido capaz de impedir os fascistas de tomar o poder. Tinha abdicado em 1946.
• 1948 - The DC-3 airliner NC16002 disappears 50 miles south of Miami, Florida.
• 1948 - Egyptian premier, Mahmoud Fatimy, is assassinated by a member of Al Ikhwan al Muslimun (the Muslim Brotherhood).
• 1949 - Jack Lovelock dies (b. 1910). New Zealand athlete.
• 1950 - The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park.
• 1950 - Alex Chilton was born. American songwriter, guitarist, singer and producer (Box Tops)
• 1951 - José Pedro Gomes was born. Portuguese actor and author.
• 1952 - Fletcher Henderson dies (b. 1897). American musician.
• 1953 - Richard Clayderman was born. French pianist.
• 1954 - Denzel Washington was born. American actor (Dr Chandler-St Elsewhere).
• 1956 - Nigel Kennedy was born. English violinist.
• 1958 - Patrice Emery Lumumba, head of the Congolese National Movement, declares that "independence is a right, not a privilege."
• 1959 - Mexico: Se promulga la Ley de Seguridad Social que consagra catorce prestaciones y por la que la Dirección de Pensiones Civiles se transformará en Instituto de Seguridad Social de los Trabajadores al Servicio del Estado (ISSSTE), que entrará en vigor el 1º de enero del próximo año.
• 1960 - Raymond Bourque was born. Canadian hockey player.
• 1962 - Rachel Z was born. American jazz pianist.
• 1962 - Michel Petrucciani was born (d. 1999). French jazz pianist.
• 1963 - Paul Hindemith dies (b. 1895). German composer.
• 1967 - Chris Ware was born. American cartoonist.
• 1967 - Katharine McCormick dies (b. 1875). American women's rights activist.
• 1968 - Israeli commando troops destroy 13 civilian aircraft at Beirut International Airport.
• 1969 - Linus Torvalds was born. Finnish computer programmer
• 1970 - Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) adopts constitution.
• 1970 - Muere en Buenos Aires Elena Sansisena de Elizalde, fundadora de la Asociación Amigos del Arte. Organizó las polémicas muestras de los pintores Emilio Pettoruti y Juan Del Prete y publicó valiosas ediciones de arte, como el "Martín Fierro", ilustrado por Adolfo Belloc. Nació en Buenos Aires en 1882.
• 1971 - Frank Sepe was born. American bodybuilder and model.
• 1971 - Benny Agbayani was born. Hawaiian baseball player
• 1971 - Max Steiner dies (b. 1888). Austrian-born American film music composer.
• 1972 - Patrick Rafter was born. Australian tennis player
• 1972 - Adam Viniteri was born. Australian Football player
• 1973 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Nobel awarded) published "Gulag Archipelago", an expose of the Soviet prison system.
• 1974 - Senegalese marxist group Reenu-Rew founds the political movement And-Jëf at a clandestine congress.
• 1976 - Katharine Byron dies (b. 1903). U.S. Congresswoman.
• 1976 - Freddie King dies (b. 1934). American blues guitarist and singer.
• 1978 - John Legend was born. American singer, songwriter, and pianist
• 1981 - The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born in Norfolk, Virginia.
• 1981 - The HBO pay cable television service expanded its schedule offering to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• 1981 - Pat Sajak starts hosting the daytime version of Wheel of Fortune.
• 1981 - Sienna Miller was born. English actress.
• 1981 - Saurabh Aggarwal was born. Indian engineer, poet and writer.
• 1981 - Allan Dwan dies (b. 1885). Canadian-born film director.
• 1982 - Nevell Johnson Jr., a black man, was mortally wounded by a police officer in a Miami video arcade, setting off three days of race-related disturbances that left another man dead.
• 1982 - Cedric Benson was born. American football player.
• 1982 - Kevin Pereira was born. American television host
• 1982 - Wanessa Camargo was born. Brazilian singer.
• 1983 - Dennis Wilson dies (b. 1944). Musician ("The Beach Boys").
• 1983 - William Demarest dies (b. 1892). American actor.
• 1983 - Jimmy Demaret dies (b. 1910). American golfer.
• 1984 - The Edge of Night, a long running daytime American soap opera ends after a 28 year run and 7420 episodes.
• 1984 - Sam Peckinpah dies (b. 1925). American film director.
• 1986 - Tom Huddlestone was born. English football player.
• 1986 - Andrei Tarkovsky dies (b. 1932). Russian film director.
• 1987 - Thomas Dekker was born. American actor
• 1989 - O Brasil quebra o recorde negativo de inflação na sua história, chegando a 1.764,86% ao ano.
• 1989 - Alexandre Dubcek, ex-líder comunista da Tchecoslováquia, é nomeado líder do parlamento.
• 1989 - A magnitude 5.6 earthquake hits Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, killing 13 people.
• 1989 - Mackenzie Rosman was born. American actress.
• 1989 - Hermann Oberth dies (b. 1894). German physicist.
• 1991 - Sonic the Hedgehog Game Gear version is released in Japan.
• 1991 - Ted Turner is named Time Magazine Man of Year.
• 1991 - Ninibeth Beatriz Leal Jiminez, 20, of Venezuela, crowned 41st Miss World
• 1991 - Cassandra Harris dies (b. 1952). Australian actress.
• 1992 - NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana played in his final game as a San Francisco 49er in a victory over the Detroit Lions.
• 1992 - O parlamento iugoslavo vota a remoção do primeiro-ministro Milan Panic.
• 1992 - Daniella Perez dies murdered (b. 11 Aug 1970). Brazilian actress.
• 1992 - Sal Maglie dies (b. 1917). Baseball player.
• 1993 - Banesto, bajo la dirección de Mario Conde, es intervenido por el Banco de España.
• 1994 - CIA Director R. James Woolsey resigned, ending a tenure that was shadowed by the Aldrich Ames spy scandal.
• 1994 - Jean-Louis Lévesque dies (b. 1911). French Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist.
• 1995 - CompuServe sets a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups after being pressured by German prosecutors.
• 1997 - O governo de Hong Kong mata e incinera 1,3 milhão de galinhas na tentativa de eliminar o vírus da gripe, que havia matado quatro pessoas e causado temor de uma epidemia.
• 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.
• 1998 - Claudia Benton dies (b. 1959). Peruvian child psychologist.
• 1999 - Saparmurat Niyazov was proclaimed President for Life in Turkmenistan.
• 1999 - Clayton Moore dies (b. 1914). American actor.
• 2000 - Adrian Năstase became the Prime Minister of Romania.
• 2000 - U.S. retail giant Montgomery Ward announces it is going out of business after 128 years.
• 2001 - In Argentina thousands of people flooded banks as the government eased a 5-day bank holiday. Demonstrations ensued and riot police used rubber bullets and tear gas to quell violence at the Government House known as Casa Rosada.
• 2001 - Pakistan arrested some 50 leading members of 2 Islamic militant groups: Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mahammed.
• 2001 - Japan’s Nikkei closed at its lowest year-end mark since 1983: 10,542.
• 2001 - William X. Kienzle dies (b. 1928). American novelist.
• 2003 - Libya for the first time allowed U.N. nuclear officials to inspect four sites related to its nuclear weapons program.
• 2003 - Benjamin Hacker dies (b. 1935). U.S. admiral
• 2003 - Dinsdale Landen dies (b. 1932). British actor.
• 2004 - Jerry Orbach dies (b. 1935). American actor.
• 2004 - Susan Sontag dies at 71. Writer and activist.
• 2005 - A U.S. immigration judge orders John Demjanjuk deported to the Ukraine for crimes against humanity committed during World War II.
• Calendar of Saints - Feast of the Holy Innocents, also known as Childermas, commemorating the Massacre of the Innocents on order of king Herod the Great. In Spain and Latin American countries the festival is celebrated in a manner similar to April Fool's Day.
• Proclamation Day in South Australia