Today's 28 December Major Events in History

Photo for the article Today's 28 December Major Events

418 St Boniface I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
457 Roman armies proclaim Majorian Emperor of the Western Roman Empire

1065 A new church devoted to St Peter the Apostle is founded and consecrated by Edward the Confessor in London, later called Westminster Abbey. It is rebuilt in the Gothic style during the mid-13th century. [1]

1308 Japanese Emperor Hanazono ascends to the throne at age 11

First Legal Depository

1537 French king Francis I issues decree to booksellers and printers requiring them to deposit their work in the King's Library, world's first legal depository requirement [1]

Galileo Observes Neptune

1612 First observation of Neptune - Galileo observes and records a "fixed star" without realizing it is a planet

1614 Sperm whale beaches at Noordwijk, Netherlands
1767 King Taksin is crowned King of Siam and establishes Thonburi as his capital

Last Generals Before Revolution

1781 Comte de Rochambeau and Nicolas Luckner are the last generals to be made Marshal of France by Louis XVI before the Revolution

1816 American Colonization Society organizes

1828 6.8 earthquake strikes Echigo, Japan, 30,000 people are killed

1835 Second Seminole War between United States and Native Americans begins with the Dade Massacre in Sumter County, Florida; Senminole fighters kill nearly all 110 of US Army troops under Major Francis Langhorne Dade [1] [2]
1836 Proclamation of South Australia as a British province. Formal proclamation is read near The Old Gum Tree, in what is now the Adelaide suburb of Glenelg North, by Captain John Hindmarsh
1836 Spain recognizes the independence of Mexico
1846 Iowa becomes 29th state of the United States of America
1849 Jean Baptiste Jolly opens the first modern dry cleaning shop in Paris, Teinturerie Jolly-Belin
1850 Rangoon, Burma, destroyed by fire

Tubmans' Last Mission

1860 Harriet Tubman arrives in Auburn, New York, on her last mission to free slaves, having evaded capture for eight years on the Underground Railroad

1864 Battle of Egypt Station, Mississippi
1867 United States claims Midway Island, the first territory annexed outside continental limits
1869 William Finley Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio, patents a form of chewing gum
1877 John Stevens applies for a patent for his flour-rolling mill

Quod Apostolici Muneris

1878 Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Quod apostolici muneris (socialism)

1879 North British Railway's train falls as Tay bridge collapses (Scotland)
1886 American inventor Josephine Cochrane is granted a patent for the dishwasher [1]
1887 John Layton Jarvis becomes first British race horse trainer to be knighted for services to racing
1893 French lieutenant Boiteux annexes Tumbuktu
1895 Filmmakers the Lumière brothers hold the first commercial film screening at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris
1897 Edmond Rostand's play "Cyrano de Bergerac" premieres in Paris
1902 1st indoor pro football game, Syracuse beats Philadelphia 6-0 (Madison Square Garden, NYC)
1902 Trans-Pacific cable links Hawaii to US

1904 First daily wireless weather forecasts are published in London
1905 NSW is all out for 805 against Victoria, winning by an innings and 253 runs
1906 Ecuador adopts its second liberal constitution
1908 Earthquake strikes Messina in Italy, killing nearly 80,000 people and causing widespread destruction and a devastating tsunami in the Strait of Messina
1910 Englebert Humperdink's opera "Konigskinder" premiers at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City
1912 First municipally owned streetcars take to the streets in San Francisco, California, as the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) begins service on Geary Street
1912 National Council of Young Israel convenes
1914 Turks are repulsed by the Russians after fighting in Armenia for weeks
1915 San Francisco City Hall dedicated by Mayor James Rolph
1915 Today the British Cabinet recognizes the true nature of the war by deciding to institute compulsory military service, with single men to be conscripted before married ones

Vezina 1st Assist

1918 Montreal's Georges Vezina becomes the first NHL goalie to record an assist during the Canadiens’ 6-3 win over the Toronto Arenas

1921 Beginning of the Rand Rebellion in South Africa with a strike by white mineworkers and becomes an armed uprising against the state

1926 Arthur Mailey takes 4-362 off 64 overs (no maidens) NSW v Vic
1926 Imperial Airways begins mail and passenger service from England to India
1926 Ponsford scores 352 and Ryder 295 as Victoria is all out for 1,107 against NSW at the MCG with a crowd of 22,348

Royal Family

1927 George Kaufman & Moss Hart's play "Royal Family" premieres in NYC

1928 Ma Rainey, "Mother of the Blues" makes her last record - "Big Feelin' Blues"

Bright Eyes

1934 Film "Bright Eyes" premieres starring Shirley Temple and featuring the song "On the Good Ship Lollipop"

1934 First ever Women's cricket international begins England vs Australia in Australia
1935 Pravda publishes a letter by Pavel Postyshev, who revives New Year tree tradition in the Soviet Union
1935 WPA Federal Art Project Gallery opens in New York City
1937 Fascist Octavian Goga becomes Prime Minister of Romania
1938 Paul Gibb scores 106 on Test Cricket debut v South Africa
1941 State of siege goes into effect in Bohemia and Moravia
1942 Oberkommando Wehrmacht orders strategist flight out of Kaukasus
1942 Robert Sullivan becomes 1st pilot to fly Atlantic 100 times
1943 Kalmyk inhabitants of the Republic of Kalmykia are deported by the Soviet Union to Central Asia and Siberia, with many dying en route
1944 Dutch Resistance fighter Corrie ten Boom is accidentally released from the Ravensbrück concentration camp, living to speak and educate of her experience in "The Hiding Place"

Eisenhower, Montgomery Meeting

1944 Eisenhower & Montgomery meet in Hasselt, Belgium

1944 Former Wash third baseman Buddy Lewis wins Distinguished Flying Cross

Richard 8 Point Game First

1944 Montreal right wing Maurice 'Rocket' Richard becomes first player in NHL history to score 8 points in one game with 5 goals and 3 assists in the Canadiens' 9-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings

1945 Congress officially recognizes "Pledge of Allegiance"
1948 DC-3 airliner NC16002 disappears 50 miles south of Miami, Florida
1948 Dutch forces complete their occupation of major urban centers in Central Java during the Second Police Action
1948 IDF crosses Egyptian border
1948 US announced a study to launch an Earth satellite
1949 20th Century Fox announces it will produce TV programs
1950 Advance units of Chinese Communist forces cross the 38th Parallel into South Korea in preparation for the massive New Year's Offensive that captures Seoul a week later
1950 The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's 1st National Park
1953 WLBT TV channel 3 in Jackson, Mississippi (NBC) begins broadcasting
1954 KEPR TV channel 19 in Pasco-Kennewick-Richl, WA (CBS) 1st broadcast
1956 Miss Frances [Horwich], last Ding Dong School on NBC-TV
1957 CBS says it will not broadcast baseball games in markets where minor league games are being played
1957 USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test
1958 "The Chipmunk Song" by the Chipmunks (Alvin, Simon & Theodore with David Seville) hits #1
1958 "The Greatest Game Ever Played": Baltimore Colts win the 26th NFL Championship against the NY Giants 23-17 at Yankee Stadium in the first sudden-death overtime game in NFL history, with 17 future members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame involved

1962 UN troops occupies Elizabethstad Katanga

Sing a Sad Song

1963 Merle Haggard's 1st appearance on country music chart with "Sing a Sad Song"

1963 Scottish Lotus driver Jim Clark wins his record 7th Grand Prix of the F1 season, the South African event at Prince George Circuit; first Scotsman to win the World Drivers Championship

1965 Ballon d'Or: Benfica striker Eusébio wins award for best European football player; first Portuguese national to win, and still only Benfica player
1966 13 die in a train crash in Everett, Massachusetts
1966 China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
1967 KTSB (now KSNT) TV channel 27 in Topeka, KS (NBC) begins broadcasting
1967 Muriel Siebert is the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange

Miami Pop Festival

1968 100,000 attend Miami Pop Festival in Florida; performers included: The Jimi Hendrix Experience; The Mothers of Invention; Chuck Berry; John Lee Hooker; The Crazy World of Arthur Brown; and Blues Image

1968 Israeli assault on Beirut Airport
1968 KVOF (KUDO, now KWBB) TV channel 38 in San Francisco, California (IND) 1st broadcast
1968 The Beatles' "The Beatles" aka "The White Album" goes #1 & stays #1 for 9 weeks
1969 Dallas Cowboy kicker Mike Clark, attempting an on-side kick against Cleveland, missed the ball

Last of the Red Hot Lovers

1969 Neil Simon's play "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" premieres in NYC

1969 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
1970 Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) adopts constitution

1971 Ballon d'Or: Ajax forward Johan Cruyff wins award for best European football player ahead of Inter forward Sandro Mazzola and Manchester United winger George Best; first Dutch national and Ajax player to win award

1971 Hashish now falls under the Dutch Opium Law (Opiumwet)
1972 2 people are killed in a Loyalist bomb attack on the village of Belturbet, County Cavan, Republic of Ireland
1972 Kim Il-song becomes president of North Korea

Nazi Leader Remains Found

1972 Nazi leader Martin Bormann's skeleton and remains are found in Berlin

1972 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
1973 Akron Ohio's Chamber of Commerce terminates itself from Soap Box Derby

Gulag Archipelago

1973 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn publishes "Gulag Archipelago" - a literary investigation of the police-state system in the Soviet Union

1973 Comet Kohoutek at perihelion

1974 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes Pakistan, killing 5,200
1974 Senegalese Marxist group Reenu-Rew founds the political movement And-Jëf at a clandestine congress
1975 "The Hail Mary", with 32 seconds left in the NFC Divisional Playoff Game, Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach throws a legendary 50-yard winning touchdown pass to Drew Pearson to defeat the Minnesota Vikings, and the "Hail Mary" play gains national recognition
1975 1st broadcast of Dutch public radio service Hilversum IV; programming chiefly classical music
1975 Earthquake in Pakistan, 4,000 die
1975 Gary Cosier scores 109 v West Indies at MCG on Test Cricket debut
1975 In the aftermath of the Cold War, the New York Rangers become first team in NHL history to face a touring Soviet hockey squad; Soviet Army beats the Rangers, 7-3 at Madison Square Garden

1976 Ballon d'Or: Bayern Munich defender Franz Beckenbauer wins title of Europe's best football player for a 2nd time; beats Anderlecht winger Rob Rensenbrink and Dukla Prague goalkeeper Ivo Viktor

1976 Genie Francis joins "General Hospital" as Laura Vining
1976 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

Islander's 30th Hat Trick

1978 30th hat trick in NHL New York Islander franchise history, scored by Mike Bossy

1980 Mexico terminated fishing agreements with US
1981 1st American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr is born in Norfolk, Virginia
1981 Cleveland Metroparks Administrative offices move from downtown to Zoo (Cleveland, Ohio)
1981 Warner-Elektra-Atlantic raises price of 45 records from $1.68 to $1.98
1982 Ballon d'Or: Juventus striker Paolo Rossi is named best European football player; beats Bordeaux midfielder Alain Giresse and Juventus' Polish midfielder Zbigniew Boniek
1983 US threatens to leave UNESCO after objecting to its domination by a coalition of third world and Soviet bloc nations
1983 Warren Cromartie signs 3 year $2.5M contract with Yomiuri Giants
1984 Creosote bush determined to be 11,700 years old

Rajiv Gandhi Wins Election

1984 Rajiv Gandhi's Congress party wins the general election in India

1984 TV soap "Edge of Night" ends 28 year run
1984 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh, Semipalitinsk USSR
1985 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1985 Warring Lebanese Muslim & Christian leaders sign peace agreement
1987 Ronald Gene Simmons kills 2 former employers and wounds 4 in a shooting spree and surrenders to police; later bodies of 14 of his relatives he had murdered are found at his home near Dover, Arkansas
1988 John Tarrant, 1st Australian born Zen teacher, receives Dharma Transmission
1988 US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirms Yonkers is guilty of racism
1988 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan

Dubček Elected

1989 Alexander Dubček elected Chairman of the Federal Assembly (Parliament) of Czechslovakia

1989 Earthquake at Newcastle Australia, 11 die
1990 2 die and 188 injured in a NYC subway electrical fire in tunnel near Clark Street, Brooklyn
1990 Blockbuster Bowl 1: Florida State beats Penn State, 24-17
1991 8 are crushed to death at a RAP basketball game at City College, NYC
1991 Irene the Icon of Greek Orthodox church returns after being stolen

Ted Turner Man of the Year

1991 Ted Turner is named Time Magazine Man of Year

Bocelli's Debut

1993 Andrea Bocelli makes his classical debut singing at a concert at Teatro Romolo Valli in Reggio Emilia, Italy

1993 Ballon d'Or: Juventus' Italian striker Roberto Baggio is named Europe's best football player ahead of Inter forward Dennis Bergkamp and Manchester United striker Eric Cantona
1993 Dow Jones Industrial Average hits record 3793.49
1993 Dutch Antilles government of Yandi Paula forms

The Madness of King George

1994 "The Madness of King George" film based on the play by Alan Bennett, directed by Nicholas Hytner, starring Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren premieres in the US

Tammy Wynette Hospitalized

1994 American country singer Tammy Wynette admitted to the hospital with bile duct infection

1996 India all out for 66 at Durban after making 100 in cricket 1st innings
1997 Sting defeats Hollywood Hogan for the WCW Championship
1999 Saparmurat Niyazov is proclaimed President for Life in Turkmenistan
2000 US retail giant Montgomery Ward announces it is going out of business after 128 years
2001 OPEC oil ministers meeting in Cairo agree to reduce their crude oil output quotas by a combined 1.5 million barrels per day

LinkedIn Founded

2002 LinkedIn is founded by Reid Hoffman and others in Mountain View, California

2005 US immigration judge orders John Demjanjuk deported to Ukraine for crimes against humanity committed during World War II
2007 Nepal's interim parliament abolishes the monarchy and declares the country a federal democratic republic
2008 Detroit Lions crash to a 31-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field, the first team in NFL history to go winless in a 16-game season
2009 43 people die in a suicide bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, as Shia Muslims observe the Day of Ashura

2012 13 people are killed and 19 are injured after a bus plunges into a river in western Nepal

Ban on US Adoptions

2012 Vladimir Putin signs into law a ban on US adoption of Russian children

2013 Chris Weidman defeats Anderson Silva to retain the UFC Middleweight Championship
2013 Early signs of Ebola epidemic: 2-year-old child in Guinea dies of an unidentified hemorrhagic fever; mother, sister and grandmother soon follow
2014 Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crashes in bad weather in the Java Sea, killing all 162 people on board
2015 Japan and South Korea reach agreement over WWII "comfort women", Japan apologies and pays 1bn yen compensation
2017 Iranian woman Vida Mohaved arrested for protesting against policy of compulsory hijab, sparking other protests
2017 Protests in Mashhad, Iran against price rises and corruption

Pullman, Palin, Twiggy Knighted

2018 British New Year's honours list include Knights for author Philip Pullman and comedian Michael Palin, a Dame for Twiggy and a Order of the Companions of Honour for Margaret Atwood

2018 UFC bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes of Brazil moves up in weight and KOs dominant featherweight Cris "Cyborg" Justino just 51 seconds into the opening round at the Forum in Inglewood, CA; first female to win UFC titles in multiple weight classes
2019 52nd Peach Bowl (College Football Playoff semi final): #1 LSU beats #4 Oklahoma, 63-28
2019 Jihadist fundamentalist group al-Shabaab sets off a truck bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing at least 84 people and wounding over 150
2021 Test cricket debutant Scott Boland takes 6 for 7 as Australia retain the Ashes (3-0) with an innings & 14 run win against England in the 3rd Test in Melbourne
2023 L’Oréal heiress and businesswoman Françoise Bettencourt Meyers is the first woman to be worth $100 billion, after a rise in the company's share price [1]