August 28th is the 240th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (241st in leap years), with 125 days remaining.
Events:
- 1521: The Turks occupy Belgrade
- 1565: St. Augustine, Florida, established. It is the oldest remaining European occupation in the United States.
- 1609: Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.
- 1619: Ferdinand II is elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
- 1830: The Tom Thumb starts the first railway service in the United States.
- 1849: After a siege of over one month, Venice, which had declared itself independent, surrenders to Austria.
- 1850: Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin premieres.
- 1867: The United States occupy Midway Island.
- 1879: Cetshwayo, last king of the Zulus, is captured by the English.
- 1883: Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire.
- 1884: First known photograph of a tornado is made.
- 1913: Queen Wilhelmina opens the Peace Palace in The Hague.
- 1914: The British fleet beats the German in the Battle of Helgoland.
- 1916: Germany declares war on Romania.
- 1916: Italy declares war on Germany.
- 1917: Ten suffragettes are arrested when picketing the White House.
- 1938: The concentration camp Mauthausen is opened.
- 1943: In Denmark, a universal strike against the Nazi occupation is started.
- 1944: Marseille and Toulon are liberated.
- 1955: Black Mississippi boy Emmett Till is murdered for whistling to a white woman and calling her baby.
- 1963: During a 200,000 people's civil rights rally in Washington DC, Martin Luther King gives his famous I have a dream speech.
- 1972: During the Olympic Games of Munich, Mark Spitz gets his first of seven gold medals in swimming events.
- 1979: An IRA bomb explodes on the Great Market in Brussels.
- 1981: The National Center for Disease Control announces a high incidence of Pneumocystis and Kaposi's sarcoma in gay men. Soon, these will be considered symptoms of an illness of the immune system, which will be called AIDS.
- 1986: Stage of siege called in Bolivia.
- 1986: US Navy officer Jerry A. Whitworth is sentenced to 365 years imprisonment for espionage for the Soviet Union.
- 1988: At an air show in Ramstein, West Germany three stunt fighters collide; 70 people die.
- 1990: Iraq declares Kuwait to be a province.
- 1993: A dam breaks in Qinghai, West China. 223 die.
- 1993: 76 die in an airplane crash in Tajikistan.
- 1993: Teng Cheong elected president of Singapore
- 1994: First gay pride march in Japan.
- 1995: A mortar shell kills 38 people in Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The NATO action against Bosnian Serbs was a reaction to this incident.
- 1996: Britain's prince Charles and princess Diana are divorced.
- 1998: A new legal system, based on the Koran, is established in Pakistan.
- 2001: Dutch prime minister Wim Kok announces that he will not be available for another term as PvdA party leader or prime minister after the 2002 elections.
Births:
- 1749: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (author)
- 1774: Elizabeth Ann Seton (first American-born saint)
- 1828: Leo Tolstoi (author) (birthday according to the Julian calendar, it was September 9 according to the Gregorian calendar)
- 1831: Lucy Hayes (1st lady: wife of Rutherford B. Hayes)
- 1911: Joseph Luns (Dutch foreign minister and secretary-general of NATO)
- 1930: Ben Gazzara (actor)
- 1957: Daniel Stern (actor)
- 1961: Kim Appleby ([[singer) (Mel & Kim)
- 1965: Shania Twain (singer)
- 1969: Jason Priestley (actor)
Deaths:
- 430 : Augustine of Hippo
- 1481: Alphonso V (king of Portugal)
- 1818: Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (founder of Chicago)
- 1900: Henry Sidgwick (philosopher)
- 1919: Louis Botha (leader of the Boers in South Africa)
- 1943: Boris III (king of Bulgaria)
- 1990: Willy Vandersteen (cartoonist) (Suske & Wiske)
- 1995: Michael Ende (author) (Neverending Story)
Holidays etc.:
- Hong Kong: Liberation Day (1945)
- Catholic and other churches: feast day of Saint Augustine of Hippo.
August 27 - August 29 - July 28 - September 28 - more historical anniversaries
See Also: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December