December 28 - Definition and Overview

December 28 is the 362nd day of the year (363rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 3 days remaining.

Events

• 418 - St. Boniface I becomes Pope
• 1065 - Westminster Abbey is consecrated.
• 1308 - The reign of Emperor Hanazono, the 95th imperial ruler of Japan, began.
• 1612 - Galileo Galilei was the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune when it was in conjunction with Jupiter, yet he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star because of its extremely slow motion along the ecliptic at that time. Neptune was not truly discovered until 1846, about 234 years after Galileo first sighted it with his telescope.
• 1832 - John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign.
• 1835 - Osceola led his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the U.S. Army.
• 1836 - South Australia and Adelaide are founded
• 1836 - Spain recognizes independence of Mexico.
• 1846 - Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.
• 1879 - The Tay Bridge Disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passed over it, killing 75.
• 1895 - The Lumiere brothers have their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines -- this date is commonly considered the debut of the cinema.
• 1897 - The play Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, premieres in Paris.
• 1902 - The first indoor professional American football game is played in New York City at Madison Square Garden.
• 1908 - An earthquake rocks Messina, Sicily killing over 75,000.
• 1945 - The U.S. Congress officially recognizes the Pledge of Allegiance
• 1950 - The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park.
• 1973 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn publishes Gulag Archipelago.
• 1981 - The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born (Norfolk, Virginia).
• 1991 - Nine are crushed while a crowd pushes their way into a basketball game at City College of New York.
• 1991 - Sonic the Hedgehog Game Gear version is released in Japan.
• 1995 - CompuServe sets a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups after being pressured by German prosecutors.
• 1998 - Claudia Benton of West University Place, Texas is murdered in her home by Angel Maturino Resendiz. This is Angel's third victim in his third incident.
• 1999 - Saparmurat Niyazov was proclaimed President for Life in Turkmenistan.
• 2000 - Adrian Năstase became the Prime Minister of Romania.
• 2000 - U.S. retail giant Montgomery Ward announces it is going out of business after 128 years.

Births

• 1856 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (d. 1924)
• 1879 - Billy Mitchell, military aviation pioneer (d. 1936)
• 1882 - Arthur Eddington, astronomer and physicist (d. 1944)
• 1888 - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, film director (d. 1931)
• 1899 - Eugeniusz Bodo, famous Polish actor (killed in 1943)
• 1902 - Mortimer Adler, philosopher (d. 1902)
• 1903 - John von Neumann, mathematician (d. 1957)
• 1903 - Earl "Fatha" Hines, jazz musician (d. 1983)
• 1905 - Cliff Arquette, actor, comedian ("Charley Weaver") (d. 1974)
• 1908 - Lew Ayres, actor (d. 1996)
• 1922 - Stan Lee, comic book writer
• 1925 - Hildegard Knef, actress, singer and writer (d. 2002)
• 1929 - Owen Bieber, labor leader
• 1929 - Brian Redhead, journalist and broadcaster (d. 1994)
• 1932 - Roy Hattersley, British politician
• 1932 - Manuel Puig, writer (d. 1990)
• 1933 - Nichelle Nichols, actress and singer
• 1934 - Maggie Smith, actress
• 1943 - Richard Whiteley, UK television presenter
• 1946 - Edgar Winter, musician
• 1949 - Jack Lovelock, New Zealand athlete
• 1953 - Richard Clayderman, pianist
• 1954 - Denzel Washington, actor
• 1969 - Linus Torvalds, programmer and initiator of Linux
• 1971 - Frank Sepe, bodybuilder and male model

Deaths

• 1367 - Ashikaga Yoshiakira, Ashikaga shogun (b. 1330)
• 1694 - Queen Mary II of England (b. 1662)
• 1859 - Thomas Macaulay, British poet, historian, politician
• 1916 - Eduard Strauss, composer (b. 1835)
• 1918 - Olavo Bilac, poet (b. 1865)
• 1937 - Maurice Ravel, composer (b. 1875)
• 1938 - Florence Lawrence, Hollywood's first "star" (b. 1886)
• 1945 - Theodore Dreiser, author (b. 1871)
• 1947 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (b. 1869)
• 1952 - Fletcher Henderson, jazz musician (b. 1897)
• 1963 - Paul Hindemith, German composer (b. 1895)
• 1967 - Katharine McCormick, U.S. women's rights activist
• 1981 - Allan Dwan, pioneer film director (b. 1885)
• 1983 - William Demarest, actor
• 1983 - Jimmy Demaret, golf champion (b. 1910)
• 1983 - Dennis Wilson, musician ("The Beach Boys") (b. 1944)
• 1984 - Sam Peckinpah, film director (b. 1925)
• 1986 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian movie director (b. 1932)
• 1991 - Cassandra Harris, Australian actress (b. 1952)
• 1998 - Claudia Benton, child psychologist
• 1999 - Clayton Moore, American actor
• 2001 - William X. Kienzle, novelist
• 2003 - Benjamin Hacker, U.S. Naval Admiral, (b. 1935)
• 2003 - Dinsdale Landen, British actor (b. 1932)
• 2004 - Jerry Orbach, actor (Law & Order) (b. 1935)
• 2004 - Susan Sontag, writer, feminist, activist (b. 1933)

Holidays and observances

• The third day of Christmas in Western Christianity.
• Childermas(Children's Mass) Old English name for Feast of the Holy Innocents, commemorating the children massacred on Herod's orders (part of the birth of Christ story in the Bible).
• Also called Massacre of the Innocents or el Día de los Santos Inocentes, it is a day of practical jokes, in the same spirit as April Fool's Day.
• Proclamation Day (South Australian public holiday), for the foundation of the Australian state of South Australia

December 27 - December 29 - November 28 - January 28 -- listing of all days