On This Day in History

You may think March 28th feels like any other Tuesday, but it’s shocking just how many historical moments have happened on this “regular” day in history. Here’s a quick (and fascinating) walk through the last 540 years!

1483 – Birthday of Santi Raphael (Italian painter, architect)
1515 – Birthday of Teresa of Avila (Spanish mystic writer/saint)
1797 – Nathaniel Briggs patented a washing machine.
1854 – France and England declared war on Russia, joining forces with the Ottoman Turks in the Crimean War.
1855 – The Salvation Army was officially organized in the U.S.
1864 – A group of Copperheads attack Federal soldiers in Charleston, IL. Five are killed and 20 wounded.
1890 – Birthday of Paul Whiteman (dubbed the “King of Jazz” for taking jazz mainstream in the 1920s/30s)
1891 – 1st world weightlifting championship won by Edward Lawrence in London, England.
1908 – Automobile owners lobby Congress in support of a bill that calls for vehicle licensing and federal registration.
1910 – The first seaplane in history took off.
1911 – In New York, suffragists performed the political play “Pageant of Protest.”
1917 – The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corp was founded, Great Britain’s first official service women.
1920 – Numerous tornadoes swept through the Midwest and southern region of the U.S. killing more than 200 people and injuring over 1,000.
1922 – Bradley A. Fiske patented a microfilm reading device.
1930 – Turkish cities Constantinople and Angora changed their names to Istanbul and Ankara.
1930 – Jerome Isaac Friedman, an American physicist helped confirm the existence of quarks.
1933 – Nazis ordered a ban on all Jews in businesses, professions, and schools.
1936 – Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize for literature.
1938 – In Italy, psychiatrists demonstrated the use of electric-shock therapy for treatment of certain mental illnesses.
1939 – The Spanish Civil War ended.
1942 – King George VI awarded people of Malta with the George Cross Medal of Bravery for their heroism while under attack by Italian and German bombers.
1946 – Birthday of Alejandro Toledo (48th president of Peru)
1947 – The American Helicopter Society revealed a flying device that could be strapped to a person’s body.
1955 – Birthday of Reba McEntire (Musician and actress)
1963 – Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds is released.
1963 – Sonny Werblin announced the New York Titans of the American Football League was changing is names to the NY Jets.
1963 – Birthday of Bernice King (Daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.)
1964 – The most violent earthquake (9.2) in the United States struck Prince William Sound, Alaska.
1964 – Pirate radio station Radio Caroline began broadcast.
1964 – The Beatles have 10 hits on Billboard’s Hot 100 at the same time (surpassing the previous record set by Elvis Presley).
1967 – Van Morrison recorded “Brown Eyed Girl.”
1968 – The U.S. lost its first F-111 aircraft in Vietnam when it vanished while on a combat mission.
1969 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president, died at the age of 78.
1969 – Birthday of Salt (Cheryl James, rapper of Salt-n-Pepa)
1969 – Birthday of Vince Vaughn (actor)
1972 – Elvis Presley recorded “Burning Love,” his last major hit.
1974 – A streaker ran onto the set of “The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.”
1976 – Genesis began its first North American tour since Peter Gabriel’s departure with Phil Collins as the new lead singer.
1979 – Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant experiences a partial meltdown and radioactive leak.
1981 – Birthday of Julia Stiles (actress)
1986 – More than 6,000 radio stations of all format varieties played “We are the World” simultaneously at 10:15 a.m. EST.
1986 – Birthday of Lady Gaga (Musician and actress)
1987 – Birthday of Jonathan Van Ness (Stylist, author, and reality TV star)
1990 – In Britain, a joint Anglo-U.S. sting operation ended with the seizure of 40 capacitors, which can be used in the trigger mechanism of a nuclear weapon.
1990 – Lithuania (formerly a part of the USSR) dropped border guards.
2001 – Sean Puffy Combs (AKA Puff Daddy) told MTV he wanted to now be known as P.Diddy.
2002 – Charlotte, the wife of Lt. Colonel Mark Engenan received the “Spouse of the Year Award” in Italy. She was a very active medical volunteer in Northern Italy.
2002 – The National Museum of American History put a cornet that had belonged to Louis Armstrong on display.
2008 – Germany becomes the first country to recognize Kosovo’s independence.
2010 – China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. signed a deal to buy Ford Motor Company’s Volvo car unit.
2017 – In Kimberley, Western Australia, a sauropod footprint was found that measured five feet and nine inches long.