28 April 2024 (MIA)

357 – Emperor Constantius II enters Rome for the first time to celebrate his victory over Magnus Magnentius.

1192 – Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I), King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, two days after his title to the throne is confirmed by election. The killing is carried out by Hashshashin.

1253 – Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, propounds Namu Myōhō Renge Kyo for the very first time and declares it to be the essence of Buddhism, in effect founding Nichiren Buddhism.

1503 – The Battle of Cerignola is fought. It is noted as the first battle in history won by small arms fire using gunpowder.

1611 – Establishment of the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, the largest Catholic university in the world.

1788 – Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.

1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty: Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift and the rebel crew returns to Tahiti briefly and then sets sail for Pitcairn Island.

1792 – France invades the Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium), beginning the French Revolutionary War.

1796 – The Armistice of Cherasco is signed by Napoleon Bonaparte and Vittorio Amedeo III, the King of Sardinia, expanding French territory along the Mediterranean coast.

1869 – Chinese and Irish laborers for the Central Pacific Railroad working on the First Transcontinental Railroad lay ten miles of track in one day, a feat which has never been matched.

1881 – Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico.

1887 – A week after being arrested by the Prussian Secret Police, Alsatian police inspector Guillaume Schnaebelé is released on order of William I, German Emperor, defusing a possible war.

1910 – Frenchman Louis Paulhan wins the 1910 London to Manchester air race, the first long-distance aeroplane race in England.

1920 – Azerbaijan is added to the Soviet Union.

1932 – A vaccine for yellow fever is announced for use on humans.

1944 – World War II: Nine German E-boats attacked US and UK units during Exercise Tiger, the rehearsal for the Normandy landings, killing 946.

1945 – Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are executed by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement.

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia.

1948 – Igor Stravinsky conducted the premier of his American ballet, Orpheus, in New York City at New York City Center.

1949 – The Hukbalahap are accused of assassinating former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, while she is en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband; her daughter and ten others are also killed.

1950 – Bhumibol Adulyadej marries Queen Sirikit after their quiet engagement in Lausanne, Switzerland on July 19, 1949.

1952 – Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

1952 – Occupied Japan: The United States occupation of Japan ends as the Treaty of San Francisco, ratified September 8, 1951, comes into force.

1952 – The Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (Treaty of Taipei) is signed in Taipei, Taiwan between Japan and the Republic of China to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War.

1965 – United States occupation of the Dominican Republic: American troops land in the Dominican Republic to “forestall establishment of a Communist dictatorship” and to evacuate U.S. Army troops.

1969 – Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France.

1970 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to fight communist sanctuaries in Cambodia.

1975 – General Cao Van Vien, chief of the South Vietnamese military, departs for the US as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on victory.

1977 – The Red Army Faction trial ends, with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe found guilty of four counts of murder and more than 30 counts of attempted murder.

1977 – The Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure is signed.

1978 – President of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, is overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels.

1986 – The United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise becomes the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to transit the Suez Canal, navigating from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to relieve the USS Coral Sea.

1986 – High levels of radiation resulting from the Chernobyl disaster are detected at a nuclear power plant in Sweden, leading Soviet authorities to publicly announce the accident.

1987 – American engineer Ben Linder is killed in an ambush by U.S.-funded Contras in northern Nicaragua.

1988 – Near Maui, Hawaii, flight attendant Clarabelle “C.B.” Lansing is blown out of Aloha Airlines Flight 243, a Boeing 737, and falls to her death when part of the plane’s fuselage rips open in mid-flight.

1994 – Former Central Intelligence Agency counterintelligence officer and analyst Aldrich Ames pleads guilty to giving U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia.

1996 – Whitewater controversy: President Bill Clinton gives a 4½ hour videotaped testimony for the defense.

1996 – Port Arthur massacre, Tasmania: A gunman, Martin Bryant, opens fire at the Broad Arrow Cafe in Port Arthur, Tasmania, killing 35 people and wounding 23 others.

2001 – Dennis Tito becomes the world’s first space tourist.

2001 – Eight Macedonian army and police special forces officers were ambushed, tortured and killed by members from the National Liberation Army which waged a war against Macedonia in the first half of 2001.

2002 – NATO declares Russia a limited partner in the Western alliance.

2002 – The Mars Odyssey finds signs of large ice deposits on the planet Mars.

2004 – The Iraqi Governing Council chooses Ayad Allawi, a longtime anti-Saddam Hussein exile, as prime minister of Iraq’s interim government.

2008 – The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly of Nepal formally declares Nepal a republic, ending the 240-year reign of the Shah dynasty.

2010 – In West Bengal, India, a train derailment and subsequent collision kills 141 passengers.

2011 – Malta votes on the introduction of divorce.