May 28

Events

• 585 BC - A solar eclipse occurred, as predicted by Thales, while Alyattes is battling Cyaxares, leading to a truce. This is one of the cardinal dates from which other dates can be calculated.
• 1503 - Treaty of Everlasting Peace between Scotland and England is signed.
• 1503 - James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor are married by Pope Alexander VI according to Papal Bull
• 1588 - The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, begins to set sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel (it will take until May 30 for all ships to leave port)
• 1754 - French and Indian War: In the first engagement of the war, Virginia militia under 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington defeats a French reconnaissance party in southwestern Pennsylvania
• 1774 - American Revolutionary War: The first Continental Congress convenes
• 1863 - American Civil War: The 54th Massachusetts, the first African American regiment, leaves Boston, Massachusetts to fight for the Union.
• 1892 - In San Francisco, California, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club.
• 1934 - Near Callender, Ontario, the Dionne quintuplets are born to Olivia and Elzire Dionne later becoming the first quintuplets to survive infancy.
  • - The Glyndebourne festival is inaugurated.
• 1936 - Alan Turing submits On Computable Numbers for publishing.
• 1937 - In Washington, DC President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushes a button signaling the start of vehicle traffic over the Golden Gate Bridge.
• 1940 - World War II: Belgium surrenders to Germany
• 1942 - World War II: In retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazis in Czechoslovakia kill over 1800 people
• 1961 - Peter Benenson's article "The Forgotten Prisoners" is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International
• 1964 - The Palestine Liberation Organization is formed
• 1972 - Watergate Scandal: White House operatives break into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, DC
• 1975 - 15 West African countries sign the Treaty of Lagos thus creating the Economic Community of West African States.
• 1977 - In Southgate, Kentucky, the Beverly Hills Supper Club is engulfed in fire, killing 165 inside.
• 1987 - 19-year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust evades Soviet air defense and lands a private plane in Red Square in Moscow. He is immediately detained and will later be released on August 3, 1988.
• 1987 - A robot probe finds the wreckage of the USS Monitor near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
• 1995 - Neftegorsk, Russia is hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake killing at least 2000 people (2/3rd of the town's population).
• 1998 - Nuclear testing: Pakistan responds to a series of Indian nuclear tests with five of its own, promting the United States, Japan and other nations to impose economic sanctions.
• 1999 - In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo de Vinci's newly-restored masterpiece "The Last Supper" is put back on display.
• 2002 - Washington DC's medical examiner declares that Chandra Levy's death was the result of homicide.

Births

• 1371 - John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy (+ 1419)
• 1588 - Pierre Seguier, chancellor of France (+ 1672)
• 1660 - King George I of Great Britain (+ 1727)
• 1759 - William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister of Great Britain (+ 1806)
• 1779 - Thomas Moore, poet (+ 1852)
• 1807 - Louis Agassiz, zoologist and geologist (+ 1873)
• 1836 - Alexander Mitscherlich, chemist (+ 1918)
• 1853 - Carl Larsson, painter (+ 1919)
• 1858 - Carl Rickard Nyberg, inventor
• 1884 - Edvard Benes, politician (+ 1948)
• 1888 - Jim Thorpe, sportsman (+ 1953)
• 1892 - Sepp Dietrich, SS officer, bodyguard of Adolf Hitler (+ 1966)
• 1908 - Ian Fleming, author of James Bond books (+ 1964)
• 1910 - T-Bone Walker, blues singer (+ 1975)
• 1910 - Lady Rachel Kempson, actress (+ 2003)
• 1911 - Fritz Hochwälder, author (+ 1986)
• 1912 - Patrick White, author (+ 1990)
• 1914 - W. G. G. Duncan Smith, World War II pilot (+ 1996)
• 1915 - Joseph H. Greenberg, linguist (+ 2001)
• 1916 - Walker Percy, author (+ 1990)
• 1917 - Papa John Creach, musician (+ 1994)
• 1921 - Heinz G. Konsalik, author (+ 1999)
• 1922 - Lou Duva, boxing trainer
• 1923 - György Ligeti, composer
• 1923 - Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, actor, director, producer (+ 1998)
• 1925 - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone
• 1925 - Bülent Ecevit, Prime Minister of Turkey
• 1931 - Carroll Baker, actress
• 1934 - The Dionne quintuplets, the world's first surviving quintuplets
• 1936 - Betty Shabazz, civil rights leader and wife of Malcolm X
• 1938 - Osvaldo Romberg, painter, architect
• 1938 - Jerry West, basketball star
• 1944 - Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City
• 1944 - Gladys Knight, singer
• 1945 - John Fogerty, musician ("Creedence Clearwater Revival")
• 1946 - K. Satchidanandan, poet
• 1947 - Sondra Locke, actress
• 1949 - Wendy O. Williams, musician ("The Plasmatics") (+ 1998)
• 1962 - Roland Gift, musician ("Fine Young Cannibals")
• 1964 - Jeff Fenech, boxer
• 1965 - Chris Ballew, musician
• 1968 - Kylie Minogue, actress and singer
• 2003 - Prometea, first cloned horse

Deaths

• 1357 - King Afonso IV of Portugal
• 1805 - Luigi Boccherini, musician
• 1811 - Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, British minister
• 1849 - Anne Bronte, author
• 1940 - Friedrich Karl von Hessen
• 1948 - Unity Mitford, fascist sympthizer
• 1971 - Audie Murphy, actor, war hero
• 1972 - King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
• 1980 - Rolf Nevanlinna, mathematician
• 1993 - Billy Conn, boxer, actor
• 1994 - Julius Boros, golfer
• 1998 - Phil Hartman, actor, comedian
• 2001 - Francisco Varela, biologist and philosopher
• 2003 - Ilya Prigogine, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1977
• 2003 - Alexander Heimann, author
• 2003 - Oleg Makarov, cosmonaut

Holidays and Observances

May 27 - May 29 - April 28 - June 28 -- listing of all days

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

Referenced By