May 28

From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

[edit] Births

• 1371 - John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy
• 1934 - Dionne Quintuplets
• 1944 - Gladys Knight, American singer
• 1968 - Kylie Minogue, Australian singer, actor

[edit] Deaths

• 1357 - Alfonso IV of Portugal
• 1805 - Luigi Boccherini, Italian cellist
• 1849 - Anne Bronte, English author
• 1972 - Edward VIII of England
• 2003 - Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize winner
• 2003 - Martha Scott, America actor

[edit] Events

• 585 BC - A solar eclipse occurs, 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 - James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor are married by Pope Alexander VI according to Papal Bull.
• 1503 - The Treaty of Everlasting Peace between Scotland and England is signed, which would actually last 10 years.
• 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 defeat a French reconnaissance party at Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette Couty 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.
• 1905 - Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima ends with the destruction of the Russian Baltic Fleet by Admiral Togo Heihachiro and the Imperial Japanese Navy.
• 1918 - The first Republic of Armenia declares its statehood.
• 1918 - Independence day in the Azerbaijan Republic.
• 1926 - Military dictatorship established in Portugal to suppress the unrest of the First Republic.
• 1930 - The Chrysler Building in New York City officially opens.
• 1934 - The Glyndebourne festival in England is inaugurated.
• 1936 - Alan Turing submits On Computable Numbers for publication.
• 1937 - The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, DC, who pushes a button signaling the start of vehicle traffic over the span.
• 1937 - Neville Chamberlain becomes British Prime Minister.
• 1940 - World War II: Belgium surrenders to Germany.
• 1940 - World War II: Norwegian, French, Polish and British forces recapture Narvik. First allied infantry victory in WW2.
• 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.
• 1974 - Northern Ireland's power-sharing Sunningdale Agreement collapses following a general strike by loyalists.
• 1975 - Fifteen 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 people inside.
• 1982 - Falklands War: British forces defeat the Argentines at the Battle of Goose Green.
• 1987 - 19-year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust evades Soviet Union air defenses and lands a private plane in Red Square in Moscow. He is immediately detained and is not released until August 3, 1988.
• 1987 - A robot probe finds the wreckage of the USS Monitor near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
• 1995 - The Russian town of Neftegorsk is hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake that kills at least 2,000 people, 2/3 of total population.
• 1998 - Nuclear testing: Pakistan responds to a series of Indian nuclear tests with five of its own, prompting the United States, Japan, and other nations to impose economic sanctions.
• 1999 - In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's newly-restored masterpiece "The Last Supper" is put back on display.
• 2000 - The volcano Mount Cameroon erupts.
• 2004 - The cable TV channels TechTV and G4 merge.