585 BC The Battle of Halys between the Medes and the Lydians was being fought on May 28, 585 BC near the Halys River in what is now central Turkey when a solar eclipse was seen by both sides. Stunned, both armies laid down their weapons, and they agreed to a truce. The eclipse had been predicted by the Greek philosopher and scientist Thales of Miletus, who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the very year in which it actually took place.
1588 On May 28, 1588 a fleet of 130 ships under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia set sail from Lisbon with the purpose of escorting an army to invade England. Philip II of Spain planned to invade England, seize the throne from Elizabeth I and restore the power of the Catholic Church. He wanted to punish England for its support of Dutch Protestants fighting against the Spanish rule and for Francis Drake's plundering of Spanish possessions in America and Cadiz.
1759 William Pitt the Younger was born at Hayes Place in the village of Hayes, Kent on May 28, 1759. His father William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, was British Prime Minister between 1756-61 and 1766-68. He is regarded as the founder of the British Empire. Three years after Pitt the Younger entered Parliament as the member for Appleby in 178, he became the youngest British prime minister at age 24.
1828 Anne Seymour Damer, Britain’s first professional female sculptor, died, aged 79, on May 28, 1828 at her London house. Damer became a sculptor in 1776, after her husband committed suicide leaving considerable debts. She sculpted Lord Nelson among others and was satirized for her male clothing and close relationships with women. She was buried in the church at Sundridge, Kent, along with her sculptor's tools and apron and the ashes of her favorite dog.
1843 Noah Webster died on May 28, 1843. He is best known for his work on the American Dictionary of the English Language, which was first published in 1828. He passed away a few days after he had completed revising an appendix to the second edition of his American Language Dictionary. At the time many of Webster's efforts with the dictionary were still unrecognized.
1889 Édouard and André Michelin ran a rubber factory in Clermont-Ferrand, France. The brothers were enthusiastic about John Dunlop's newly invented pneumatic tyre, and worked on creating their own version, one that did not need to be glued to the rim. Michelin was incorporated on May 28, 1889. Michelin took out its first patent for a detachable pneumatic tyre on a metal rim, which was used by Charles Terront to win the world's first long distance cycle race, the 1891 Paris–Brest–Paris.
1897 In Le Roy, New York, carpenter and cough syrup manufacturer, Pearle Bixby Wait trademarked a gelatin dessert, called Jell-O on May 28, 1897. He and his wife May added strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon flavoring to granulated gelatin and sugar. Sales were poor, so Wait sold his Jell-O business for $450 to his neighbor, Orator F.Woodward, whose Genesee Pure Food Co produced the successful Grain-O health drink. Their marketing helped make Jell-O a household word.
1907 The first Isle of Man TT (Tourist Trophy) motor cycle races were held on May 28, 1907. They took over the Short Course, consisting of a circuit progressing from St John's → Ballacraine → Kirk Michael → Peel → St John's. The race was ten laps of the 15 mile 1,430 yards course, a total race distance of 158.125 miles. The single-cylinder class race was won by Charles R. Collier riding a Matchless in 4 hours, 8 minutes and 8 seconds at an average race speed of 38.21 mph.
1908 James Bond author Ian Fleming was born on May 28, 1908 at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair. His mother was Evelyn St Croix Rose, and his father was Valentine Fleming, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910. Fleming worked for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War. He modeled the character of James Bond after Merlin Minshall, a man who worked for Fleming during the war as a spy.
1929 On with the Show! debuted on May 28, 1929. An American Pre-Code musical film released by Warner Bros, it was filmed in Two-strip Technicolor and is noted as the first all-talking, all-color feature length movie. Gold Diggers of Broadway, released on August 29, 1929, was the second all-talking, all-Technicolor feature-length film.
1588 On May 28, 1588 a fleet of 130 ships under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia set sail from Lisbon with the purpose of escorting an army to invade England. Philip II of Spain planned to invade England, seize the throne from Elizabeth I and restore the power of the Catholic Church. He wanted to punish England for its support of Dutch Protestants fighting against the Spanish rule and for Francis Drake's plundering of Spanish possessions in America and Cadiz.
1759 William Pitt the Younger was born at Hayes Place in the village of Hayes, Kent on May 28, 1759. His father William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, was British Prime Minister between 1756-61 and 1766-68. He is regarded as the founder of the British Empire. Three years after Pitt the Younger entered Parliament as the member for Appleby in 178, he became the youngest British prime minister at age 24.
1828 Anne Seymour Damer, Britain’s first professional female sculptor, died, aged 79, on May 28, 1828 at her London house. Damer became a sculptor in 1776, after her husband committed suicide leaving considerable debts. She sculpted Lord Nelson among others and was satirized for her male clothing and close relationships with women. She was buried in the church at Sundridge, Kent, along with her sculptor's tools and apron and the ashes of her favorite dog.
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| Anne Seymour Damer Self-portrait bust |
1843 Noah Webster died on May 28, 1843. He is best known for his work on the American Dictionary of the English Language, which was first published in 1828. He passed away a few days after he had completed revising an appendix to the second edition of his American Language Dictionary. At the time many of Webster's efforts with the dictionary were still unrecognized.
1889 Édouard and André Michelin ran a rubber factory in Clermont-Ferrand, France. The brothers were enthusiastic about John Dunlop's newly invented pneumatic tyre, and worked on creating their own version, one that did not need to be glued to the rim. Michelin was incorporated on May 28, 1889. Michelin took out its first patent for a detachable pneumatic tyre on a metal rim, which was used by Charles Terront to win the world's first long distance cycle race, the 1891 Paris–Brest–Paris.
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| An 1898 poster by "O'Galop" of Bibendum, the Michelin Man |
1907 The first Isle of Man TT (Tourist Trophy) motor cycle races were held on May 28, 1907. They took over the Short Course, consisting of a circuit progressing from St John's → Ballacraine → Kirk Michael → Peel → St John's. The race was ten laps of the 15 mile 1,430 yards course, a total race distance of 158.125 miles. The single-cylinder class race was won by Charles R. Collier riding a Matchless in 4 hours, 8 minutes and 8 seconds at an average race speed of 38.21 mph.
1908 James Bond author Ian Fleming was born on May 28, 1908 at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair. His mother was Evelyn St Croix Rose, and his father was Valentine Fleming, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910. Fleming worked for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War. He modeled the character of James Bond after Merlin Minshall, a man who worked for Fleming during the war as a spy.
1929 On with the Show! debuted on May 28, 1929. An American Pre-Code musical film released by Warner Bros, it was filmed in Two-strip Technicolor and is noted as the first all-talking, all-color feature length movie. Gold Diggers of Broadway, released on August 29, 1929, was the second all-talking, all-Technicolor feature-length film.
1934 On May 28, 1934, near the village of Corbeil, Ontario, Canada, the world welcomed the Dionne quintuplets: Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie, and Marie. Born to Oliva and Elzire Dionne in a farmhouse, these remarkable children were the first recorded quintuplets to be born and survive infancy.
1936 Alan Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science and on May 28, 1936 he introduced the Turing machine, a basic abstract symbol-manipulating hypothetical device that could simulate the logic of any computer algorithm. He proposed the Turing test, which was an attempt to define a standard for when a machine can be called "intelligent". The idea was that a computer could be said to "think" if a human talking with it could not tell it was a machine.
1937 On May 28, 1937, Stanley Baldwin resigned as Prime Minister, advising the King to send for Neville Chamberlain. At age 68, he was the second-eldest person in the 20th century (behind Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman) to become Prime Minister for the first time. Arthur Neville Chamberlain was one of several UK prime ministers that chose to be known by their middle names, along with Ramsay MacDonald, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and Gordon Brown.
1937 In 1934 Adolf Hitler asked his fellow Austrian Ferdinand Porsche to dream up a basic vehicle able to transport two adults and three children. The result was the Volkswagen ("people's car" in German) Beetle, which was designed by Porsche and a team of engineers. The Volkswagen company was established on May 28, 1937 by the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) in Berlin.
1959 Miss Able and Miss Baker, two NASA rhesus monkeys, became the first animals ever to return alive from a space mission on May 28. 1959. After reaching an altitude of approximately 300 miles (482 kilometers), the spacecraft returned to Earth and safely landed in the Atlantic Ocean. The successful return of Miss Able and Miss Baker marked a significant milestone in space exploration, demonstrating that living beings could withstand the physical stresses of space travel and return safely.
1961 The human rights organization, Amnesty International, was founded following a publication of Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners in the May 28, 1961 edition of The Observer.
It was founded largely through the efforts of Peter Benenson, a lawyer who had converted to Catholicism four years previously and a Quaker Eric Baker.
1967 On August 27, 1966, 65-year-old Francis Chichester set sail in his 16.5m/54ft ketch Gipsy Moth IV from Plymouth in England. He returned there after 226 days of sailing on May 28, 1967, having circumnavigated the globe, with one stop (in Sydney). By doing so, Chichester became the first person to achieve a true circumnavigation of the world solo from West to East via the great Capes.
1972 The Duke of Windsor (formerly Edward VIII of the UK) was a smoker from an early age, In late 1971 he was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent cobalt therapy. The Duke passed away at his home in Paris on May 28, 1972, less than a month before his 78th birthday.
2003 Wicked is a Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, which premiered on May 28, 2003 at the Curran Theatre, San Francisco. It is based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, itself a retelling of the classic 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In July 2017, Wicked surpassed The Phantom of the Opera as Broadway's second-highest grossing musical, trailing only The Lion King.
2011 The world's largest bed is 26.5 meters long and 16.44 meters wide. It was built in Hertme, Netherlands by Commissie Zomerfeesten St Gregorius Hertme as part of the Hertme summer festival. The bed is made of wood and steel and can sleep up to 24 people. It took a week to build and was completed on May 28, 2011.
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