TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 28
48BC – On landing in Egypt, Pompey is murdered on the orders of Ptolemy.
1066 – William the Conqueror invades England landing at Pevensey Bay, Sussex
1542 – San Diego, CA, was discovered by Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.
1781 – 9,000 American and 7,000 French troops begin siege of Yorktown
1787 – The U.S. Congress voted to send the new Constitution of the United States to the state legislatures for their approval
1789 – In the U.S., the first Federal Congress passed a resolution that asked President George Washington to recommend to the nation a day of thanksgiving. Several days later Washington issued a proclamation that named Thursday, November 26, 1789 as a “Day of Publick Thanksgivin.”
1850 – The U.S. Navy abolished flogging as a form of punishment.
1850 – U.S. President Millard Fillmore named Brigham Young the first governor of the Utah territory. In 1857, U.S. President James Buchanan removed Young from the position.
1904 – A woman is placed under arrest for smoking a cigarette on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
1913 – Race riots in Harriston, Mississippi, kill 10 people.
1918 – In the worlds worst flu epidemic in history (called Spanish Flu because the first major outbreak causing multiple deaths was in Spain), an estimated 30 million people died worldwide
1928 – Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin when he notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory; it remained for Howard Florey and Ernst Chain to isolate the active ingredient, allowing the “miracle drug” to be developed in the 1940s.
1939 – Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree on a division of Poland; Warsaw surrenders to German troops.
1946 – An ever increasing number of returning World War II vets are learning to fly under the legislation provided by the GI Bill of Rights, with thousands across the country gaining private pilot licenses.
1961 – A coup in Damascus led to the dissolution of the United Arab Republic, which was a short-lived union between Syria and Egypt.
1974 – First Lady Betty Ford underwent a mastectomy to remove a lump in her breast.
1975 – An armed robbery goes wrong at a Spaghetti House restaurant in Knightsbridge, London. The robbers then take nine staff hostage and demand a plane and safe passage to Jamaica
1978 – Pope John Paul I died of a heart attack, just 33 days after he was elected pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
1980 – Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage Makes its Debut
1995 – Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat sign an interim agreement concerning settlement on the Gaza Strip.
1996 – Afghanistan’s former president (1986-92) Mohammad Najibullah tortured and murdered by the Taliban.
2000 – The hard line Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon sparked a riot during a tour of the compound around Al-Aqsa mosque
2009 – The country of Iran successfully tested long-rang missiles amid controversy over the country’s nuclear enrichment program.
2012 – President Obama blocked a Chinese firm from being able to build wind farms in Oregon because of security concerns.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
