This Day in History

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September 28

Today is a busy day:

Today is Freedom From Hunger Day.

Today is International Right to Know Day, "raising awareness about people's right to access government information while promoting freedom of information as essential to both democracy and good governance".

Today is See You at the Pole Day, "an annual gathering of thousands of Christian students at a flagpole in front of their local school for prayer, scripture-reading and worship, during the early morning before school starts."

Today is World Rabies Day.

And, finally, today is Ask a Stupid Question Day, in the United States. In honor of same: Who is buried in Grant's tomb?

48 BC – After landing in Egypt, Pompey the Great is assassinated on the orders of Ptolemy, King of Egypt.

1066 – William the Conqueror invades England beginning the Norman conquest of England.

1781 – American forces backed by a French fleet begin the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, during the American Revolutionary War.

1787 – The newly completed United States Constitution is voted on by the U.S. Congress to be sent to the state legislatures for approval.

1791 – France becomes the first country to emancipate its Jewish population.

1871 – The Brazilian Parliament passes the Law of the Free Womb, granting freedom to all new children born to slaves, the first major step in the eradication of slavery in Brazil.

1889 – The first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) defines the length of a meter as the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum with ten percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.

1892 – The first night game for American football takes place in a contest between Wyoming Seminary and Mansfield State Normal.

1912 – The Ulster Covenant is signed by some 500,000 Ulster Protestant Unionists in opposition to the Third Irish Home Rule Bill.

1924 – First round-the-world flight is completed.

1928 – Sir Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.

1951 – CBS makes the first color televisions available for sale to the general public, but the product is discontinued less than a month later.

1973 – The ITT Building in New York City is bombed in protest at ITT's alleged involvement in the September 11, 1973 coup d'état in Chile.

1975 – The Spaghetti House siege, in which nine people are taken hostage, takes place in London.

1991, American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Miles Davis died of a stroke and pneumonia. His 1959 album 'Kind of Blue', is a major influence on jazz music. Davis is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.

1994 – The cruise ferry MS Estonia sinks in the Baltic Sea, killing 852 people.

2008 – SpaceX launches the first private spacecraft, Falcon 1 into orbit.

Births

551 BC – Confucius ("He who stand on toilet, is high on pot."); 1836 – Thomas Crapper (invented the ballcock, snicker); 1901 – William S. Paley (founded CBS); 1901 – Ed Sullivan (had a really big shoe); 1905 – Max Schmeling; 1909 – Al Capp (created Li'l Abner); 1914 – Maria Franziska von Trapp (of the The Sound Of Music von Trapps); 1916 – Peter Finch (he's as mad as hell, and he's not going to take this anymore); 1925 – Seymour Cray (founded the CRAY Computer Company); 1926 – Jerry Clower; 1934 – Brigitte Bardot; 1935 – Ronald Lacey (got his face melted off in Raiders Of The Lost Ark); 1938 – Ben E. King♪ ♫; 1943 – J. T. Walsh; 1950 – John Sayles; 1954 – George Lynch(Dokken, Lynch Mob); 1964 – Janeane Garofalo; 1967 – Mira Sorvino; 1967 – Moon Zappa; 1968 – Francois Botha; 1968 – Rob Moroso; 1968 – Naomi Watts; 1972 – Dita Von Teese; 1979 – Bam Margera (jackass, I mean Jackass); 1987 – Hilary Duff♪ ♫

Deaths

48 BC – Pompey; 1891 – Herman Melville (Typee, Omoo, Moby Dick); 1895 – Louis Pasteur; 1914 – Richard Warren Sears (yeah, that Sears); 1935 – William Kennedy Dickson (invented the Kinetoscope); 1953 – Edwin Hubble; 1956 – William Boeing (yeah, that Boeing); 1964 – Harpo Marx; 1970 – John Dos Passos; 1970 – Gamal Abdel Nasser; 1989 – Ferdinand Marcos; 1991 – Miles Davis♪ ♫; 2000 – Pierre Trudeau; 2003 – Althea Gibson; 2003 – Elia Kazan; 2007 – Wally Parks (founded Nat'l Hot Rod Assn (NHRA); 2012 – Chris Economaki; 2016 – Shimon Peres