December 28

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.
   * 1832 - John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United
     States to resign.
   * 1846 - Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.
   * 1879 - 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 motion picture.
   * 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.
   * 1937 - The Irish Free State becomes the Republic of Ireland.
   * 1945 - The United States Congress officially recognizes the Pledge of
     Allegiance
   * 1950 - The Peak District becomes Great Britain'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.
   * 1995 - CompuServe sets a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented
     newsgroups after being pressured by German prosecutors.

Births

   * 1856 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (+ 1924)
   * 1879 - Billy Mitchell, military aviation pioneer (+ 1936)
   * 1882 - Arthur Eddington, astronomer and physicist (+ 1944)
   * 1888 - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, film director (+ 1931)
   * 1902 - Mortimer Adler, philosopher
   * 1903 - Earl "Fatha" Hines, jazz musician (+ 1983)
   * 1905 - Cliff Arquette, actor, comedian ("Charley Weaver") (+ 1974)
   * 1908 - Lew Ayres, actor (+ 1996)
   * 1922 - Stan Lee, comic book writer
   * 1925 - Hildegard Knef, actress, singer and writer
   * 1929 - Owen Bieber, labor leader
   * 1932 - Roy Hattersley, British politician
   * 1932 - Manuel Puig, writer (+ 1990)
   * 1934 - Maggie Smith, actress
   * 1946 - Edgar Winter, musician
   * 1953 - Richard Clayderman, pianist
   * 1954 - Denzel Washington, actor
   * 1969 - Linus Torvalds, programmer and initiator of Linux

Deaths

   * 1694 - Queen Mary II of England
   * 1937 - Maurice Ravel, composer
   * 1938 - Florence Lawrence, Hollywood's first "star"
   * 1945 - Theodore Dreiser, author
   * 1947 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy
   * 1963 - Paul Hindemith, German composer
   * 1981 - Allan Dwan, pioneer film director
   * 1983 - William Demarest, actor
   * 1983 - Jimmy Demaret, golf champion
   * 1983 - Dennis Wilson, musician ("The Beach Boys")
   * 1984 - Sam Peckinpah, film director
   * 1986 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian movie director
   * 1999 - Clayton Moore, actor (The Lone Ranger)
   * 2001 - William X. Kienzle, novelist

Holidays and observances

   * Catholicism: Massacre of the Saint Innocents
   * Fools' day in Spain (no April Fool's Day there)