July 28
1540 –
Thomas Cromwell is executed at the order of
Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife,
Catherine Howard, on the same day.
1794 – French Revolution:
Maximilien Robespierre and
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just are executed by guillotine in Paris, France.
1854 –
USS Constellation (1854), the last all-sail warship built by the United States Navy, is commissioned.
1864 – American Civil War:
Battle of Ezra Church: Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, Georgia.
1866 – At the age of 18,
Vinnie Ream became the youngest artist and first woman to receive a commission from the United States government for a statue—that of
Abraham Lincoln in the US Capitol rotunda.
1915 – The United States begins a 20-year
occupation of Haiti.
1943 – World War II:
Operation Gomorrah: The Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg, Germany causing a
firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.
1945 – A U.S. Army
B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26.
1956 -
Gene Vincent made his first appearance on national TV in the US on
The Perry Como Show.
1965 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in
South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.
1969 - Police in Moscow reported that thousands of public phone booths had been vandalized after thieves were stealing parts of the phones to convert their acoustic guitars to electric. A feature in a Russian youth magazine had shown details on how to do this.
1973 –
Summer Jam at Watkins Glen: Nearly 600,000 people attend a rock festival at the
Watkins Glen International Raceway.
1976 – The
Tangshan earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 moment magnitude flattens Tangshan in the People's Republic of China, killing
242,769 people, and injuring
164,851.
1996 – The remains of a prehistoric man are discovered near Kennewick, Washington. Such remains will be known as the
Kennewick Man.
2002 – Nine coal miners trapped in the flooded
Quecreek Mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, are rescued after 77 hours underground.
2005 – The
Provisional Irish Republican Army calls an end to its thirty-year-long armed campaign in Northern Ireland.
2011 - Marvin Lee Aday, the 63-year-old singer who goes by the name of
Meat Loaf, passed out onstage at Pittsburgh's Trib Amphitheater during an apparent asthma attack. After about ten minutes he regained his composure and finished the show.
Births
1866 – Beatrix Potter; 1901 – Rudy Vallée♪ ♫; 1907 – Earl Tupper (Tupperware); 1915 – Dick Sprang (Batman illustrator, redesigned the Batmobile in 1950, created original design of The Riddler); 1929 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis;
1930 – Junior Kimbrough♪ ♫; 1943 – Mike Bloomfield
, Bill Bradley, Richard Wright
; 1945 – Jim Davis (creator
Garfield); 1946 – Jonathan Edwards♪ ♫ (
Sunshine); 1947 – Sally Struthers; 1948 – Gerald Casale
(Devo); 1948 – Georgia Engel ('Georgette Baxter' on
Mary Tyler Moore Show); 1949 – Simon Kirke
, Steve Peregrin Took
; 1954 – Hugo Chávez; 1954 – Steve Morse
(founder Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple); 1964 – Lori Loughlin (
Full House); 1990 – Soulja Boy
Deaths
1540 – Thomas Cromwell; 1655 – Cyrano de Bergerac; 1741 – Antonio Vivaldi
♪ ♫; 1750 – Johann Sebastian Bach
♪ ♫; 1794 – Maximilien Robespierre
, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just
; 1934 – Marie Dressler; 1969 – Frank Loesser♪ ♫; 2009 – Reverend Ike; 2013 – Eileen Brennan (
Private Benjamin)