TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: SEPT 28
0048 On landing in Egypt, Pompey is murdered on the orders of Ptolemy.
935 Saint Wenceslas is murdered by his brother, Boleslaus I of Bohemia
1106 King Henry of England defeats his brother Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai and reunites England and Normandy.
1238 James of Aragon retakes Valencia, Spain, from the Arabs.
1542 Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo arrived at present-day San Diego.
1781 9,000 American and 7,000 French troops begin siege of Yorktown
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.” The fixed-date for Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday of November, was established on December 26, 1941.
1829 Walker’s Appeal, racial antislavery pamphlet, published in Boston
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.
1864 Union General William Rosecrans blames his defeat at Chickamauga on two of his subordinate generals. They are later exonerated by a court of inquiry.
1868 Opelousas Massacre at St Landry Parish Louisiana (200 blacks killed)
1874 Colonel Ronald Mackenzie raids a war camp of Comanche and Kiowa at the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, slaughtering 2,000 of their horses.
1887 Yellow River or Huáng Hé floods in China, killing between 900,000 and 2 million people, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history
1904 A woman is placed under arrest for smoking a cigarette on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
1912 W.C. Handy’s “Memphis Blues” is published.
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.
1959 Explorer VI, the U.S. satellite, takes the first video pictures of earth.
1961 Military coup in Damascus ends the Egypt-Syria union known as the United Arab Republic that was formed Feb. 1, 1958.
1963 Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art work Whaam!, depicting in comic-book style a US jet shooting down an enemy fighter, is exhibited for the first time; it will become one of the best known examples of pop art.
1976 Muhammad Ali retains heavyweight boxing championship in a close 15-round decision over Ken Norton at Yankee Stadium
1980 Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage Makes its Debut
1982 1st reports appear of death from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules
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 U.S. Federal Drug Administration approved the use of RU-486 in the United States. The pill is used to induce an abortion.
2008 Falcon 1, the first privately supported and funded spacecraft, was launched into space on its fourth attempt by SpaceX.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
