September 28 - Events

Events

• 48 BC – Pompey the Great is assassinated on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt after landing in Egypt.
• 235 – Pope Pontian resigns. He and Hippolytus, church leader of Rome, are exiled to the mines of Sardinia.
• 351 – Battle of Mursa Major: the Roman Emperor Constantius II defeats the usurper Magnentius.
• 365 – Roman usurper Procopius bribes two legions passing by Constantinople, and proclaims himself Roman emperor.
• 935 – Saint Wenceslas is murdered by his brother, Boleslaus I of Bohemia.
• 995 – Members of Slavník's dynasty – Spytimír, Pobraslav, Pořej and Čáslav are murdered by Boleslaus's son, Boleslaus II the Pious.
• 1066 – William the Bastard (as he was known at the time) invades England beginning the Norman Conquest.
• 1106 – The Battle of Tinchebrai – Henry I of England defeats his brother, Robert Curthose.
• 1238 – Muslim Valencia surrenders to the besieging King James I of Aragon the Conqueror.
• 1322 – Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor defeats Frederick I of Austria in the Battle of Mühldorf.
• 1448 – Christian I is crowned king of Denmark.
• 1538 – Ottoman–Venetian War: The Ottoman Navy scores a decisive victory over a Holy League fleet in the Battle of Preveza.
• 1542 – Navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo of Portugal arrives at what is now San Diego, California, United States.
• 1779 – American Revolution: Samuel Huntington is elected President of the Continental Congress, succeeding John Jay.
• 1781 – American forces backed by a French fleet begin the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, during the American Revolutionary War.
• 1787 – The newly completed United States Constitution is voted on by the U.S. Congress to be sent to the state legislatures for approval.
• 1791 – France becomes the first European country to emancipate its Jewish population.
• 1844 – Oscar I of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Sweden.
• 1867 – Toronto becomes the capital of Ontario.
• 1867 – The United States takes control of Midway Island.
• 1868 – Battle of Alcolea causes Queen Isabella II of Spain to flee to France.
• 1889 – The first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) defines the length of a meter as the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum with ten percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.
• 1871 – Brazilian Parliament passes the Law of the Free Womb, granting freedom to all new children born to slaves, the first major step in the eradication of slavery in Brazil.
• 1901 – Philippine-American War: Filipino guerrillas kill more than forty American soldiers while losing 28 of their own, in a surprise attack in the town of Balangiga on Samar Island.
• 1912 – The Ulster Covenant is signed by half a million Ulster Protestants in opposition to the Third Irish Home Rule Bill.
• 1912 – Corporal Frank S. Scott of the United States Army becomes the first enlisted man to die in an airplane crash. He and pilot Lt. Lewis C. Rockwell are killed in the crash of an Army Wright Model B at College Park, Maryland.
• 1918 – World War I: The Fifth Battle of Ypres begins.
• 1919 – Race riots begin in Omaha, Nebraska, US.
• 1928 – The U.K. Parliament passes the Dangerous Drugs Act outlawing cannabis.
• 1928 – Sir Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.
• 1939 – Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree on a division of Poland after their invasion during World War II.
• 1939 – Warsaw surrenders to Nazi Germany during World War II.
• 1944 – Soviet Army troops liberate Klooga concentration camp in Klooga, Estonia.
• 1950 – Indonesia joins the United Nations.
• 1951 – CBS makes the first color televisions available for sale to the general public, but the product is discontinued less than a month later.
• 1958 – France ratifies a new Constitution of France; the French Fifth Republic is then formed upon the formal adoption of the new constitution on October 4. Guinea rejects the new constitution, voting for independence instead.
• 1960 – Mali and Senegal join the United Nations.
• 1961 – A military coup in Damascus effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria.
• 1962 – The Paddington tram depot fire destroys 65 trams in Brisbane, Australia.
• 1971 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 banning the medicinal use of cannabis.
• 1973 – The ITT Building in New York City is bombed in protest at ITT's alleged involvement in the September 11, 1973 coup d'état in Chile.
• 1975 – The Spaghetti House siege, in which nine people are taken hostage, takes place in London.
• 1994 – The car ferry MS Estonia sinks in Baltic Sea, killing 852 people.
• 1995 – Bob Denard and a group of mercenaries take the islands of Comoros in a coup.
• 1995 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat sign the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
• 1996 – Former president of Afghanistan Mohammad Najibullah is tortured and brutally murdered by the Taliban.
• 2000 – Al-Aqsa Intifada: Ariel Sharon visits Al Aqsa Mosque known to Jews as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
• 2008 – SpaceX launches the first private spacecraft, the Falcon 1 into orbit.
• 2009 – The military junta leading Guinea, headed by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, raped, killed, and wounded protesters during a protest rally in a stadium called Stade du 28 Septembre.