December 28

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.
• 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 motion picture.
• 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 Great Britain'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.
• 1995 - CompuServe sets a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups after being pressured by German prosecutors.

Births

• 1856 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (+ 1924)
• 1879 - Billy Mitchell, military aviation pioneer (+ 1936)
• 1882 - Arthur Eddington, astronomer and physicist (+ 1944)
• 1888 - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, film director (+ 1931)
• 1902 - Mortimer Adler, philosopher
• 1903 - Earl "Fatha" Hines[?], jazz musician (+ 1983)
• 1905 - Cliff Arquette[?], actor, comedian ("Charley Weaver") (+ 1974)
• 1908 - Lew Ayres, actor (+ 1996)
• 1922 - Stan Lee, comic book writer
• 1925 - Hildegard Knef, actress, singer and writer
• 1929 - Owen Bieber[?], labor leader
• 1932 - Roy Hattersley, British politician
• 1932 - Manuel Puig[?], writer (+ 1990)
• 1934 - Maggie Smith, actress
• 1946 - Edgar Winter[?], musician
• 1953 - Richard Clayderman[?], pianist
• 1954 - Denzel Washington, actor
• 1969 - Linus Torvalds, programmer and initiator of Linux

Deaths

• 1694 - Queen Mary II of England
• 1937 - Maurice Ravel, composer
• 1938 - Florence Lawrence, Hollywood's first "star"
• 1945 - Theodore Dreiser, author
• 1947 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy
• 1963 - Paul Hindemith, German composer
• 1981 - Allan Dwan, pioneer film director
• 1983 - William Demarest[?], actor
• 1983 - Jimmy Demaret[?], golf champion
• 1983 - Dennis Wilson[?], musician ("The Beach Boys")
• 1984 - Sam Peckinpah, film director
• 1986 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian movie director
• 1999 - Clayton Moore[?], actor (The Lone Ranger)
• 2001 - William X. Kienzle[?], novelist

Holidays and observances

• Catholicism: Massacre of the Saint Innocents
• Fools' day in Spain (no April Fool's Day there)

December 27 - December 29 - November 28 - January 28 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December