Today in History: July 28

388   Battle at Aquileja: Emperor Theodosius beats emperor Magnus Maximis

754   Pope Stephen II, [III] makes Pippin de Korte, King of France

1148 Second Crusade: Crusaders abandon their siege of Damascus

1330 Battle of Velbuzd: Serbian forces defeats Bulgarian army

1364 Troops of the Republic of Pisa and the Republic of Florence clash in the Battle of Cascina.

1540 Thomas Cromwell is executed at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day.

1571 La Laguna encomienda, known today as the Laguna province in the Philippines is founded by the Spaniards as one of the oldest encomiendas (provinces) in the country.

1586 Sir Thomas Harriot introduces potatoes to Europe on return to England

1635 In Eighty Years’ War Spanish marshal Piccolomini conquers strategic Dutch fortress of Schenkenschans

1656 Second Northern War: Battle of Warsaw begins

1717 Prussian king Frederik Willhelm I gives compulsory education to 5-12 yrs

1741 Captain Vitus Bering discovers Mount St Elias, Alaska

1742 Prussia and Austria sign peace treaty

1790 Henry James Pye appointed British Poet Laureate by King George III

1794 French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just are executed by guillotine in Paris, France

1794 French Revolutionary figure Maximilien Robespierre and 22 other leaders of “the Terror” guillotined to thunderous cheers in Paris

1808 Mahmud II succeeds Mustafa IV as Sultan of Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and Caliph of Islam

1821 Peru declares independence from Spain (National Day)

1851 Total solar eclipse captured on a daguerreotype photograph

1858 First use of fingerprints as a means of identification is made by Sir William James Herschel of the Indian Civil Service

1858 Nadar takes first airborne photo (in a balloon)

1862 Confederate forces defeated at More’s Hill, Mo

1864 2nd day of battle at Deep Bottom Run, Virginia

1864 American Civil War: Battle of Ezra Church: Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, Georgia

1866 Metric system becomes a legal measurement system in US

1866 Vinnie Ream becomes the first and youngest female artist to receive a commission from the United States government for a statue (of Abraham Lincoln) at the age of 18

1868 US Secretary of State William H. Seward certifies 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution granting citizenship to African American ex-slaves and due process of law

1883 Shocks triggered by volcano Epomeo (Isle of Ischia, Italy) destroys 1,200 houses at Casamicciola, kills 2,000

1893 A petition organised by Kate Sheppard, demanding women’s suffrage, is delivered to New Zealand’s parliament; signed by over 25,000 women, a 5th of the adult European female population

1896 City of Miami, Florida incorporated

1898 Spanish troops in Ponce, Puerto Rico, surrender

1900 Louis Lassing invents Hamburger in Connecticut

1904 Rafael Reyes becomes dictator of Colombia after losing Panama

1904 Interior Minister of Russia, Vyacheslav Plehve is assassinated; as leader of the most reactionary elements of government, he was hated for his repressive policies

1914 First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill orders British Grand Fleet to Scapa Flow

1914 Declaration of World War I: In the culmination of the July Crisis, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, igniting World War I

1915 Because of virtual anarchy, US Marines go ashore in Haiti on orders from President Woodrow Wilson; this will lead to an occupation that will last until 1934

1917 Silent Parade organized by James Weldon Johnson of 10,000 African-Americans who march on 5th Ave in NYC to protest against murders, lynchings, and other violence directed towards African Americans

1926 US & Panamanian pact about safeguard of Panama Canal

1930 Record 114°F (46°C) temperature at Greensburg, Kentucky (state record)

1931 Mob hitman Mad Dog Coll allegedly participates in a kidnapping attempt that results in the shooting death of a child, which earns him the nickname “Mad Dog”

1932 US President Herbert Hoover uses federal troops to forcibly evict the Bonus Army (WWI veterans and their families) gathered from their encampment in Washington DC, 4 die

1932 “White Zombie” – First feature length zombie film directed by Victor Halperin and starring Béla Lugos is released in the US

1933 Frist singing telegram delivered (to Rudy Vallee), NYC

1933 Spain recognizes the USSR

1934 118°F (48°C) temperature at Orofino, Idaho (state record)

1935 First flight of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

1938 Hawaii Clipper disappears between Guam and Manila as the first loss of an airliner in trans-Pacific China Clipper service

1939 5th Dutch government of Colijn falls

1939 The Sutton Hoo helmet is discovered

1940 Radio Orange begins broadcasting from London

1942 World War II: Nazis liquidate 10,000 Jews in Minsk Belorussia Ghetto

1942 World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227. In response to alarming German advances, all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so are to be tried in a military court, with punishment ranging from duty in a shtrafbat battalion, imprisonment in a Gulag, or execution.

1943 World War II: Operation Gomorrah: The Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg, Germany causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians

1943 Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini resigns

1943 US President FDR announces end of coffee rationing in US

1943 World War II: Operation Gomorrah: RAF bombing over Hamburg causes a firestorm that kills 42,600 German civilians

1944 World War II: Adolf Hitler routes 4 division of South France to Normandy

1944 US 8th Army corp occupies Coutances France

1945 Japanese premier Suzuki disregards US ultimatum to surrender

1945 US Army B-25 bomber crashes into 79th floor of Empire State Building, 14 die and 26 injures

1945 Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva arrive on the Pacific island of Tinian with the plutonium core used to assemble the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9

1945 “Elevator girl” Betty Lou Oliver survives falling 75 stories after fog causes a US bomber plane to crash into the Empire State Building, breaking the cables supporting the elevator she was operating. This remains a world record for the longest survived elevator fall

1947 Iuliu Maniu’s Farmers’ Party is banned in Romania

1948 I G Farben chemical plant explodes in Ludwigshafen, Germany, 182 die

1948 London’s Metropolitan Police Flying Squad foils a bullion robbery in the “Battle of London Airport”.

1957 Heavy rain and a mudslide in Isahaya, western Kyūshū, Japan, kill 992.

1959 United Kingdom starts using postal codes

1959 Hawaii’s first US election sends first Asian-Americans to Congress

1960 The German Volkswagen Act came into force

1962 19 die in a train crash in Steelton Pa

1962 Mariner I launched to Mars falls into Atlantic Ocean

1964 Ranger 7 launched toward the Moon; sent back 4308 TV pictures

1965 Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.

1971 Dutch ends censorship of “Blue Movie”

1973 France performs nuclear Test at Mururoa atoll

1973 Skylab 3’s astronauts (Bean, Garriott & Lousma) launched

1974 69 die when packed bus strikes heavy truck (Belem, Brazil)

1974 Spetsgruppa A, Russia’s elite special force, was formed

1976 Tangshan Earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 moment magnitude kills 242,769 and injuring 164,851 in Northern China–the largest loss of life from an earthquake in the 20th century

1977 First oil through the TransAlaska Pipeline System reach Valdez, Alaska

1978 600,000 attend the “Summer Jam” rock festival at Watkins Glen, New York, at the time the largest ever audience at a pop festival

1978 Price of gold tops $200-an-oz level for the first time

1978 USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR

1979 France performs nuclear Test

1980 Peru adopts constitution, Fernando Belaúnde Terry becomes president

1983 NASA launches Telstar-3A

1984 23rd modern Olympic Games open in Los Angeles

1985 Alan Garcia sworn in as President of Peru

1986 Bomb attack in East Beirut, 25 killed

1986 NASA releases the transcript from doomed Challenger, pilot Michael Smith could be heard saying, “Uh-oh!” as spacecraft disintegrated

1988 Jordan cancels $1.3 billion development plan in West Bank

1990 Alberto Fujimori installed as President of Peru

1996 Kennewick Man, the remains of a prehistoric man, is discovered near Kennewick, Washington

2002 Nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, are rescued after 77 hours underground.

2002 Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 9560 crashes after takeoff from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, Russia, killing 14 of the 16 people on board

2005 The Provisional Irish Republican Army call an end to their thirty-year long armed campaign in Northern Ireland

2005 A tornado touches down in a residential area in south Birmingham, England, causing £4,000,000 worth of damages and injuring 39 people.

2012 18 people are killed and 11 injured in ethnic clashes in Ethiopia

2014 UN Security Council hold emergency meeting calling for an immediate and indefinite humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas

2014 Missiles strike near Gaza’s main hospital and a nearby refugee camp, leaving 10 dead and many wounded; Israeli Defense Force say they are not responsible

2014 Israel criticizes John Kerry’s proposed ceasefire, stating that no ceasefire deal will be accepted without the destruction of tunnels leading from Gaza to Israel and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip

2016 Earliest evidence of cancer found in 1.7 million-year-old toe fossil from Swartkrans Cave, South Africa, published in “South African Journal of Science”

2017 Pakistan Supreme Court rules corruption accusations against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif enough to remove him from office and disqualifying for lifetime

2017 General John Kelly appointed new Chief of Staff by US President Donald Trump

2018 Longest “blood moon” eclipse of the 21st century, lasting 1 hour 43 minutes