Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index December 28 is the 362nd day of the year (363rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 3 days remaining. Table of contents 1 Events 2 Births 3 Deaths 4 Holidays and observances Events 418 - St. Boniface I becomes Pope 1065 - Westminster Abbey is consecrated. 1832 - John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign. 1846 - Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state. 1879 - The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passed over it, killing 75. 1895 - The Lumiere brothers have their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines -- this date is commonly considered the debut of the motion picture. 1897 - The play Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, premieres in Paris. 1902 - The first indoor professional American football game is played in New York City at Madison Square Garden. 1908 - An earthquake rocks Messina, Sicily killing over 75,000. 1937 - The Irish Free State becomes the Republic of Ireland. 1945 - The United States Congress officially recognizes the Pledge of Allegiance 1950 - The Peak District becomes Great Britain's first National Park. 1973 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn publishes Gulag Archipelago. 1981 - The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born (Norfolk, Virginia). 1991 - Nine are crushed while a crowd pushes their way into a basketball game at City College of New York. 1991 - Sonic the Hedgehog Game Gear version is released in Japan. 1995 - CompuServe sets a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups after being pressured by German prosecutors. 1998 - Claudia Benton of West University Place, Texas is murdered in her home by Angel Maturino Resendiz. This is Angel's third victim in his third incident. Births 1856 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States († 1924) 1879 - Billy Mitchell, military aviation pioneer († 1936) 1882 - Arthur Eddington, astronomer and physicist († 1944) 1888 - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, film director († 1931) 1902 - Mortimer Adler, philosopher 1903 - John von Neumann, mathematician († 1957) 1903 - Earl "Fatha" Hines, jazz musician († 1983) 1905 - Cliff Arquette, actor, comedian ("Charley Weaver") († 1974) 1908 - Lew Ayres, actor († 1996) 1922 - Stan Lee, comic book writer 1925 - Hildegard Knef, actress, singer and writer 1929 - Owen Bieber, labor leader 1932 - Roy Hattersley, British politician 1932 - Manuel Puig, writer († 1990) 1934 - Maggie Smith, actress 1946 - Edgar Winter, musician 1953 - Richard Clayderman, pianist 1954 - Denzel Washington, actor 1969 - Linus Torvalds, programmer and initiator of Linux Deaths 1694 - Queen Mary II of England 1918 - Olavo Bilac, poet 1937 - Maurice Ravel, composer 1938 - Florence Lawrence, Hollywood's first "star" 1945 - Theodore Dreiser, author 1947 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy 1963 - Paul Hindemith, German composer 1981 - Allan Dwan, pioneer film director 1983 - William Demarest, actor 1983 - Jimmy Demaret, golf champion 1983 - Dennis Wilson, musician ("The Beach Boys") 1984 - Sam Peckinpah, film director 1986 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian movie director 1998 - Claudia Benton, Child Psychologist 1999 - Clayton Moore, actor (The Lone Ranger) 2001 - William X. Kienzle, novelist 2003 - Dinsdale Landen, actor Holidays and observances The fourth day of Christmas in Western Christianity. Massacre of the Saint Innocents Catholic, Anglican; in Mexico and Spain el Día de los Santos Inocentes is a day of practical jokes, in the same spirit as April Fool's Day. See Also: December 27 - December 29 - November 28 - January 28 -- listing of all days January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.