TODAY IN HISTORY: JUNE 28

 

June 28

 

June 28th is the 179th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 186 days remaining (187 in leap years). It is also the last day of the second quarter of the fiscal year in many countries.

Historical events on June 28th

• 1389: Battle of Kosovo: Serbian and Ottoman forces clash in a decisive battle that ends in a Serbian defeat.
• 1519: Charles V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
• 1535: Jacques Cartier sails up the St. Lawrence River, becoming the first European to explore the area that is now Canada.
• 1788: Captain Arthur Phillip arrives in Botany Bay, Australia, with the First Fleet, marking the beginning of European settlement in Australia.
• 1830: The July Revolution begins in France, leading to the overthrow of King Charles X.
• 1864: The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain is fought during the American Civil War, resulting in a Confederate victory.
• 1876: Custer's Last Stand: General George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry Regiment are wiped out by Lakota and Northern Cheyenne warriors at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
• 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, sparking World War I.
• 1919: The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending World War I.
• 1940: The Soviet Union annexes Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania.
• 1941: The Battle of Białystok–Minsk begins during World War II, resulting in a German victory and the capture of hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers.
• 1945: The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco, California.
• 1969: The Stonewall riots begin in New York City, marking a turning point in the American gay rights movement.
• 1991: Slovenia and Croatia declare independence from Yugoslavia, triggering the Yugoslav Wars.
• 1997: NASA's Pathfinder spacecraft lands on Mars, marking the first successful landing on the Red Planet in over two decades.

People born on June 28th

• 1491: King Henry VIII of England (d. 1547)
• 1712: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher and writer (d. 1778)
• 1873: Henri Matisse, French painter and sculptor (d. 1954)
• 1891: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French Jesuit priest, philosopher, and paleontologist (d. 1955)
• 1927: Mel Brooks, American comedian, actor, filmmaker, and composer
• 1930: Gary Gygax, American game designer and co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons (d. 2008)
• 1946: Christopher Hitchens, Anglo-American author, journalist, and literary critic (d. 2011)
• 1952: John Ratzenberger, American actor and voice actor
• 1963: John Cusack, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
• 1976: Elvis Stojko, Canadian figure skater
• 1986: Novak Djokovic, Serbian professional tennis player
• 1992: Selena Gomez, American singer, actress, and producer

Holidays and observances on June 28th

• International Day of the Tropics
• International Day of Action for Women's Health
• National HIV Testing Day (United States)
• National Paul Bunyan Day (United States)
• Victory Day (Slovenia)
• Statehood Day (Alabama)

Fun facts about June 28th

• June 28th is the first day of the fourth quarter of the fiscal year in many countries.
• June 28th is the day on which the first stone of the Empire State Building was laid in 1930.
• June 28th is the day on which the first episode of "The Twilight Zone" aired in 1959.
• June 28th is the day on which the first commercial flight of the Concorde supersonic jet took place in 1976.
• June 28th is the day on which the first human genome

Here are more events from this day:

1098 – Fighters of the First Crusade defeat Kerbogha of Mosul at the battle of Antioch.

1360 – Muhammed VI becomes the tenth Nasrid king of Granada after killing his brother-in-law Ismail II.

1461 – Edward, Earl of March, is crowned King Edward IV of England.

1495 – A French force heavily defeats a much larger Neapolitan and Spanish army at the battle of Seminara, leading to the creation of the Tercios by Gonzalo de Córdoba.

1519 – Charles V is elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

1575 – Sengoku period of Japan: The combined forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu are victorious in the Battle of Nagashino.

1635 – Guadeloupe becomes a French colony.

1651 – The Battle of Berestechko between Poland and Ukraine starts.

1745 – A New England colonial army captures the French fortifications at Louisbourg (New Style).

1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Sullivan's Island ends with the American victory, leading to the commemoration of Carolina Day.

1776 – American Revolutionary War: Thomas Hickey, Continental Army private and bodyguard to General George Washington, is hanged for mutiny and sedition.

1778 – American Revolutionary War: The American Continentals engage the British in the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse resulting in standstill and British withdrawal under cover of darkness.

1797 – French troops disembark in Corfu, beginning the French rule in the Ionian Islands.

1807 – Second British invasion of the Río de la Plata; John Whitelocke lands at Ensenada on an attempt to recapture Buenos Aires and is defeated by the locals.

1838 – Coronation of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

1841 – The Paris Opera Ballet premieres Giselle in the Salle Le Peletier.

1855 – Sigma Chi fraternity is founded in North America.

1859 – The first conformation dog show is held in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

1865 – The Army of the Potomac is disbanded.

1870 – The US Congress establishes the first federal holidays (New Year Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). 

1880 – Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is captured at Glenrowan.

1881 – The Austro–Serbian Alliance of 1881 is secretly signed.

1882 – The Anglo-French Convention of 1882 marks the territorial boundaries between Guinea and Sierra Leone.

1894 – Labor Day becomes an official US holiday.

1895 – The United States Court of Private Land Claims rules James Reavis’s claim to Barony of Arizona is "wholly fictitious and fraudulent."

1896 – An explosion in the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 miners.

1902 – The U.S. Congress passes the Spooner Act, authorizing President Theodore Roosevelt to acquire rights from Colombia for the Panama Canal.

1904 – The SS Norge runs aground on Hasselwood Rock in the North Atlantic 430 kilometres (270 mi) northwest of Ireland. More than 635 people die during the sinking.

1911 – The Nakhla meteorite, the first one to suggest signs of aqueous processes on Mars, falls to Earth, landing in Egypt.

1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo; this is the casus belli of World War I.

1917 – World War I: Greece joins the Allied powers.

1919 – The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending the state of war between Germany and the Allies of World War I.

1921 – Serbian King Alexander I proclaims the new constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, known thereafter as the Vidovdan Constitution.

1922 – The Irish Civil War begins with the shelling of the Four Courts in Dublin by Free State forces.

1926 – Mercedes-Benz is formed by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merging their two companies.

1936 – The Japanese puppet state of Mengjiang is formed in northern China.

1940 – Romania cedes Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union after facing an ultimatum.

1942 – World War II: Nazi Germany starts its strategic summer offensive against the Soviet Union, codenamed Case Blue.

1945 – Poland's Soviet-allied Provisional Government of National Unity is formed over a month after V-E Day.

1948 – Cold War: The Tito–Stalin Split results in the expulsion of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia from the Cominform.

1948 – Boxer Dick Turpin beats Vince Hawkins at Villa Park in Birmingham to become the first black British boxing champion in the modern era.

1950 – Korean War: Suspected communist sympathizers (between 60,000 and 200,000) are executed in the Bodo League massacre.

1950 – Korean War: Packed with its own refugees fleeing Seoul and leaving their 5th Division stranded, South Korean forces blow up the Hangang Bridge in an attempt to slow North Korea's offensive. The city falls later that day.

1950 – Korean War: The Korean People's Army kills almost a thousand doctors, nurses, inpatient civilians and wounded soldiers in the Seoul National University Hospital massacre.

1956 – In Poznań, workers from HCP factory go to the streets, sparking one of the first major protests against communist government both in Poland and Europe.

1964 – Malcolm X forms the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

1969 – Stonewall riots begin in New York City, marking the start of the Gay Rights Movement.

1973 – Elections are held for the Northern Ireland Assembly, which will lead to power-sharing between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland for the first time.

1976 – The Angolan court sentences US and UK mercenaries to death sentences and prison terms in the Luanda Trial.

1978 – The United States Supreme Court, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke bars quota systems in college admissions.

1981 – A powerful bomb explodes in Tehran, killing 73 officials of the Islamic Republican Party.

1982 – Aeroflot Flight 8641 crashes in Mazyr, Belarus, killing 132 people.

1987 – For the first time in military history, a civilian population is targeted for chemical attack when Iraqi warplanes bombed the Iranian town of Sardasht.

1989 – On the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, Slobodan Milošević delivers the Gazimestan speech at the site of the historic battle.

1997 – Holyfield–Tyson II: Mike Tyson is disqualified in the third round for biting a piece off Evander Holyfield's ear.

2001 – Slobodan Milošević is extradited to the ICTY in The Hague to stand trial.

2004 – Iraq War: Sovereign power is handed to the interim government of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority, ending the U.S.-led rule of that nation.

2009 – Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is ousted by a local military coup following a failed request to hold a referendum to rewrite the Honduran Constitution. This was the start of the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis.

2016 – A terrorist attack in Turkey's Istanbul Atatürk Airport kills 42 people and injures more than 230 others.