28 May - Definition and Overview

May 28 is the 148th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (149th in leap years). There are 217 days remaining.

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 - 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.
• 1918 - Independence day in the Azerbaijan Republic.
• 1934 - Near Callender, Ontario, the Dionne quintuplets are born to Olivia and Elzire Dionne later becoming the first quintuplets to survive infancy.
• 1934 - The Glyndebourne festival in England 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 in San Francisco, California.
• 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.
• 1969 - Sound engineer Glyn Johns mixes the second of the Beatles Bootlegs.
• 1974 - Northern Ireland's power-sharing Sunningdale Agreement collapses following a general strike by loyalists.
• 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 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's air defenses 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 (2/3 of the town's 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 de Vinci's newly-restored masterpiece "The Last Supper" is put back on display.
• 2000 - The volcano Mount Cameroon erupts.
• 2002 - Washington DC's medical examiner declares that Chandra Levy's death was the result of homicide.
• 2004 - The merger of G4 and TechTV occured

Births

• 1371 - John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy (d. 1419)
• 1524 - Selim II, Ottoman Emperor (d. 1574)
• 1588 - Pierre Seguier, chancellor of France (d. 1672)
• 1660 - King George I of Great Britain (d. 1727)
• 1759 - William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister of Britain (d. 1806)
• 1779 - Thomas Moore, poet (d. 1852)
• 1807 - Louis Agassiz, zoologist and geologist (d. 1873)
• 1818 - Pierre Beauregard, Confederate general
• 1836 - Alexander Mitscherlich, chemist (d. 1918)
• 1853 - Carl Larsson, painter (d. 1919)
• 1858 - Carl Rickard Nyberg, inventor (d. 1939)
• 1884 - Edvard Benes, politician (d. 1948)
• 1887 - Jim Thorpe, sportsman (d. 1953)
• 1892 - Sepp Dietrich, SS officer, bodyguard of Adolf Hitler (d. 1966)
• 1900 - Tommy Ladnier, jazz musician (d. 1939)
• 1908 - Ian Fleming, author of James Bond books (d. 1964)
• 1910 - T-Bone Walker, blues singer (d. 1975)
• 1910 - Lady Rachel Kempson, actress (d. 2003)
• 1911 - Fritz Hochwälder, author (d. 1986)
• 1911 - Thora Hird, British actress (d. 2003)
• 1912 - Patrick White, author (d. 1990)
• 1914 - W. G. G. Duncan Smith, World War II pilot (d. 1996)
• 1915 - Joseph H. Greenberg, linguist (d. 2001)
• 1916 - Walker Percy, author (d. 1990)
• 1917 - Papa John Creech, musician (d. 1994)
• 1921 - Heinz G. Konsalik, author (d. 1999)
• 1922 - Lou Duva, boxing trainer
• 1923 - György Ligeti, composer
• 1923 - Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, actor, director, producer (d. 1998)
• 1925 - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, German 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
• 1944 - Billy Vera, actor/musician
• 1945 - John Fogerty, musician ("Creedence Clearwater Revival")
• 1946 - K. Satchidanandan, poet
• 1947 - Sondra Locke, actress
• 1949 - Wendy O. Williams, musician ("The Plasmatics") (d. 1998)
• 1957 - Kirk Gibson, baseball player
• 1962 - Roland Gift, musician ("Fine Young Cannibals")
• 1962 - Brandon Cruz, actor
• 1964 - Jeff Fenech, boxer
• 1964 - Christa Miller, actress (The Drew Carey Show, Scrubs)
• 1965 - Chris Ballew, musician
• 1968 - Kylie Minogue, actress and singer
• 1977 - Elisabeth Hasselbeck, television panelist
• 1986 - Joseph Cross, actor
• 1989 - Bradley McNear, student
• 2003 - Prometea, first cloned horse

Deaths

• 1357 - King Afonso IV of Portugal (b. 1291)
• 1805 - Luigi Boccherini, musician (b. 1743)
• 1811 - Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, British minister (b. 1742)
• 1843 - Noah Webster, author, politician, compiler of the American Dictionary of the English Language (b. 1758)
• 1849 - Anne Brontë, author, sister of Charlotte and Emily Brontë (b. 1820)
• 1940 - Friedrich Karl von Hessen (b. 1868)
• 1948 - Unity Mitford, fascist sympathizer (b. 1914)
• 1971 - Audie Murphy, actor, war hero (b. 1924)
• 1972 - King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (b. 1894)
• 1980 - Rolf Nevanlinna, mathematician (b. 1895)
• 1993 - Billy Conn, boxer, actor (b. 1917)
• 1994 - Julius Boros, golfer (b. 1920)
• 1994 - Ely Jacques Kahn, Jr., American magazine writer (b. 1916)
• 1998 - Phil Hartman, actor, comedian (b. 1948)
• 2001 - Francisco Varela, biologist and philosopher (b. 1946)
• 2003 - Alexander Heimann, author
• 2003 - Oleg Makarov, cosmonaut (b. 1933)
• 2003 - Ilya Prigogine, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1977 (b. 1917)
• 2003 - Martha Scott, American actress (b. 1912)
• 2004 - Umberto Agnelli, Italian businessman (b. 1934)

Holidays and observances

• Sunset and sunrise occur along Manhattan's street grid centerline

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