Tuesday, May 1, 2018

TODAY IN HISTORY ― APRIL 28

April 28 is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 247 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Sunday or Monday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Wednesday or Friday (56). 

NATIONAL SUPERHERO DAY 


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

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. Three films were made of the incident―Bligh/Christian: Laughton/Gable (1935), Howard/Brando (1962), Hopkins/Gibson (1984).

1869 – Chinese and Irish laborers for the Central 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 (William H. Bonney) escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico, killing two deputies (James Bell and Bob Olinger). He was killed by lawman Pat Garrett on July 14, 1881.

1932 – A vaccine for yellow fever is announced for use on humans. Its developer, Max Theiler, won the only Nobel Prize for a vaccine.

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

1952 – Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and was elected U.S. President the same year

1952 – The post-WWII occupation of Japan by the United States ends as the Treaty of San Francisco, ratified September 8, 1951, comes into force.

1969 – Former French WWII leader, Charles de Gaulle, resigns as President

1970 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to fight communist sanctuaries in Cambodia. The objective of the campaign was the defeat of the approximately 40,000 troops of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, also known as Viet Cong) who were ensconced in the eastern border regions of Cambodia.

1975 – General Cao Văn Viên, chief of the South Vietnamese military, departs for the U.S. as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon.

1977 – The Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group) 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.

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

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. (We lived in Norway at the time.)
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. And oh, gee, who's that other guy and what happened to him?

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 – American engineer and multimillionaire, Dennis Tito, becomes the world's first space tourist through an arrangement with space tourism company Space Adventures, Ltd. He joined the Soyuz TM-32 mission on April 28, 2001, spending 7 days, 22 hours, 4 minutes in space and orbiting Earth 128 times.



BORN TODAY

1758 – James Monroe, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 5th President of the United States (d. 1831)

1908 – Oskar Schindler, Czech-German businessman, saved thousands of Jews in WWII (d. 1974)

1916 – Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian businessman, founded Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A.(d. 1993)

1926 (Nelle) Harper Lee, American novelist, To Kill a Mocking Bird (d. 2016)

1937 Saddam Hussein, Iraqi general and politician, 5th President (Dictator) of Iraq (d. 2006)

1944 Alice Waters, American chef and author, owner/chef of Chez Panisse

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted. 

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