On December 28th...

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1065 Westminster Abbey was consecrated.

1612 Galileo Galilei became the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.

1694 Queen Mary II of England died.

1732 The first known ad for Poor Richard's Almanack appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

1816 The American Colonization Society was organized.

1832 John C. Calhoun became the first Vice President of the United States to resign.

1835 Osceola led Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War.

1836 Spain recognized the independence of Mexico.

1846 Iowa was admitted as the 29th state.

1850 Rangoon, Burma, was destroyed by fire.

1856 Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, was born.

1859 Historian Thomas Babington Macaulay died.

1867 The United States claimed Midway Island.

1869 The Knights of Labor held the first Labor Day ceremonies in the United States.
1869 William Finley Semple patented chewing gum.

1877 John Stevens applied for a patent for his flour rolling mill.

1886 Josephine Cochrane received a patent for her automatic dishwashing machine.

1894 Football player Ed Healey was born.

1895 Louis and Auguste Lumière held the first commercial showing of a film at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris, France.

1897 Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac premiered in Paris.

1902 The first indoor professional American football game was played, in New York City at Madison Square Garden.
1902 The Trans-Pacific cable linked Hawaii to the U. S. mainland.

1904 The first daily wireless weather forecasts were published in London, England.

1905 The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States was founded.
1905 Actor Cliff Arquette was born.

1908 An earthquake struck Messina, Italy, killing nearly 80,000 persons.
1908 Actor Lew Ayres was born.

1912 The first municipally owned streetcars went into operation in San Francisco, California.

1922 Cartoonist Stan Lee was born.

1924 Ugandan President Milton Obote was born.

1931 Actor Martin Milner was born.

1932 Actress Nichelle Nichols was born.

1935 Author Clarence Day died.

1937 Composer Maurice Ravel died.

1938 Singer Charles Neville was born.

1945 Congress officially recognized the "Pledge of Allegiance."
1945 The U. S. Coast Guard was returned to the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department.

1946 Musician EdgarWinter was born.

1947 Victor Emmanuel III, the former King of Italy, died.

1950 Chinese troops crossed the 38th Parallel into South Korea.
1950 The Peak District became the United Kingdom's first National Park.

1954 Television journalist Gayle King was born.
1954 Actor Denzel Washington was born.

1956 Actress Marjorie Fielding died.

1957 U. S. Army Captain Bowman set a world helicopter altitude record of 30,355 feet in a Cessna YH-41.

1958 The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants 23-17 in the first ever sudden-death overtime championship game in NFL history.

1961 Edith Wilson, widow of U. S. President Woodrow Wilson, died.

1963 Jim Clark won the Formula 1 World Driving Championship.

1967 Muriel Siebert became the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

1972 Kim Il-song became President of North Korea.

1973 U. S. President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act.
1973 Actor Set Meyers was born.

1980 The James A. Garfield National Historic Site was established.

1981 Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first U. S. test-tube baby, was born in Norfolk, Virginia.

1983 Actor William Demarest died.
1983 Musician Dennis Wilson died.

1984 The TV soap opera "The Edge of Night" ended its 28-year run.
1984 Film director Sam Peckinpah died.

1989 Eleven persons died when an earthquake struck Newcastle, Australia.

1990 An electrical fire in a New York City, New York, subway tunnel killed 2 persons and injured 188.

1999 Saparmurat Niyazov was proclaimed President for Life in Turkmenistan.
1999 Clayton Moore, star of the 1950s TV show "The Lone Ranger," died.

2000 Montgomery Ward announced that it was going out of business.

2004 Actor Jerry Orbach died.

2007 Nepal abolished its monarchy and declared itself a Federal Democratic Republic.

2009 A suicide bombing killed 43 Shia Muslims observing the Day of Ashura in Karachi, Pakistan.

2014 Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crashed in bad weather in the JavaSea, kiling all 162 persons on board.

2016 Entertainer Debbie Reynolds died.

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This page was last updated on December 28, 2018.