Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

The Battle of Hormozdgan was the climactic battle between the Arsacid and the Sasanian dynasties that took place on 28 April 224. The Sasanian victory broke the power of the Parthian dynasty, effectively ending almost five centuries of Parthian rule in Iran, and marking the official start of the Sasanian era.

The Battle of Hormozdgān is fought. Ardashir I defeats and kills Artabanus V effectively ending the Parthian Empire.

Constantius II was Roman emperor from 337 to 361. His reign saw constant warfare on the borders against the Sasanian Empire and Germanic peoples, while internally the Roman Empire went through repeated civil wars, court intrigues, and usurpations. His religious policies inflamed domestic conflicts that would continue after his death.

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

Conrad of Montferrat was a nobleman, one of the major participants in the Third Crusade. He was the de facto King of Jerusalem by virtue of his marriage to Isabella I of Jerusalem from 24 November 1190, but officially elected only in 1192, days before his death. He was also the eighth Marquess of Montferrat from 1191.

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.

Nichiren was a Japanese Buddhist monk and philosopher of the Kamakura period. His teachings form the basis of Nichiren Buddhism, a unique branch of Japanese Mahayana Buddhism based on the Lotus Sutra.

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.

The Battle of Cerignola was fought on 28 April 1503 between Spanish and French armies outside the town of Cerignola, Apulia, Kingdom of Naples, approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Bari. The Spanish force under the command of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba comprising around 9,000 men, including 2,000 Landsknecht pikemen, 1,000 arquebusiers and 20 cannons, defeated the French force of 9,000 men, mainly gendarme heavy cavalry and Swiss mercenary pikemen, with about 40 cannons, led by Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, who was killed during the battle.

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

The University of Santo Tomas, officially the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines or colloquially as Ustê, is a private Catholic research university in Manila, Philippines. Founded on April 28, 1611, by Spanish friar Miguel de Benavides, third Archbishop of Manila, it has the oldest extant university charter in Asia and is one of the world's largest Catholic universities in terms of enrollment found on one campus. It is the main campus of the University of Santo Tomas System that is run by the Order of Preachers.

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

Maryland is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States. It borders Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east, as well as with the Atlantic Ocean to its east, and the national capital and federal district of Washington, D.C. to the southwest. With a total area of 12,407 square miles (32,130 km2), Maryland is the ninth-smallest state by land area, and its population of 6.1 million ranks it the 19th-most populous state and the fifth-most densely populated. Maryland's capital city is Annapolis, and the state's most populous city is Baltimore.

Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the United States Constitution.

The Mutiny on the Bounty occurred in the Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789. Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of HMS Bounty from the captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and eighteen loyalists adrift in the ship's open launch. The reasons behind the mutiny are still debated.

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.

The Austrian Netherlands were the territory of the Burgundian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire between 1714 and 1797. The period began with the acquisition by the Austrian Habsburg monarchy of the former Spanish Netherlands under the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714. It lasted until Revolutionary France annexed the territory after the Battle of Sprimont in 1794 and the Peace of Basel in 1795. Austria relinquished its claim on the province in 1797 through the Treaty of Campo Formio.

France invades the Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium and Luxembourg), beginning the French Revolutionary Wars.

The Treaty of Paris of 15 May 1796 was a treaty between the French Republic and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia during the War of the First Coalition.

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

The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete most of the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in North America. Incorporated in 1861, CPRR ceased independent operations in 1885 when the railroad was leased to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Its assets were formally merged into Southern Pacific in 1959.

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.

Henry McCarty, alias William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, was an American outlaw and gunfighter of the Old West who was linked to nine murders. He was solely responsible for four of them, and he may have played a role in five, alongside other men. He is also noted for his involvement in New Mexico's Lincoln County War.

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

The Prussian Secret Police was the secret police of Prussia in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

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

Isidore Auguste Marie Louis Paulhan, was a French aviator. He is known for winning the first Daily Mail aviation prize for the first flight between London and Manchester in 1910.

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

Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a transcontinental landlocked country at the boundary of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia's republic of Dagestan to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Turkey, via the exclave of Nakhchivan, and Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. Baku is the capital and largest city.

Azerbaijan is added to the Soviet Union.

The original Wembley Stadium, ; originally known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, London, England, best known for hosting important football matches. It stood on the same site now occupied by its successor.

Wembley Stadium is opened, named initially as the Empire Stadium.

The Independence Producers were a minor league baseball team based in Independence, Kansas, United States, that played from 1921 to 1925 and from 1928 to 1932. From 1921 to 1924, they played in the Southwestern League, and in 1925 they played in the Western Association. They played in the Western Association from 1928 to 1932 as well. The 1921 Producers were recognized as one of the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time. Perhaps their most notable alumnus was Cy Blanton. Glenn Wright, another notable Producer, made an unassisted triple play when playing Major League Baseball in 1925.

The Independence Producers hosted the first night game in the history of Organized Baseball in Independence, Kansas.

The Ustaše, was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945. It was formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement. From its inception and before the Second World War, the organization engaged in a series of terrorist activities against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It collaborated with IMRO to assassinate King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in 1934. During World War II in Yugoslavia, the Ustaše went on to perpetrate the Holocaust and genocide against its Jewish, Serb and Roma populations, killing hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma, as well as Muslim and Croat political dissidents. The ideology of the movement combined fascism, Roman Catholicism and Croatian ultranationalism.

The Ustaše massacre nearly 200 Serbs in the village of Gudovac, the first massacre of their genocidal campaign against Serbs of the Independent State of Croatia.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and dictator who led Italy as Il Duce from 1922 until his overthrow in 1943. He founded the fascist movement in 1919, with the creation of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, which became the National Fascist Party (PNF) in 1921. Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister of Italy after the March on Rome in 1922, establishing a totalitarian dictatorship. He oversaw Italy's participation in World War II as a prominent member of the Axis Powers, and was summarily executed near the end of the war in 1945.

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

Thor Heyerdahl KStJ was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in biology with specialization in zoology, botany and geography.

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

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer and conductor with French and American citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music.

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

The Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon, better known by the abbreviation Hukbalahap, was a Filipino communist guerrilla movement formed by the farmers of Central Luzon. They were originally formed to fight the Japanese, but extended their fight into a rebellion against the Philippine government, known as the Hukbalahap rebellion in 1946. It was eventually put down through a series of reforms and military victories by Defense Secretary, and later President, Ramon Magsaysay.

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.

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. A General of the Army, Eisenhower was the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. His successful leadership in Operation Torch (1942–1943) and Operation Overlord was pivotal to the Allied victory in World War II.

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

Japan was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II from the surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, at the war's end until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect on April 28, 1952. The occupation, led by the American military with support from the British Commonwealth and under the supervision of the Far Eastern Commission, involved a total of nearly one million Allied soldiers. The occupation was overseen by the US General Douglas MacArthur, who was appointed Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers by the US president Harry S. Truman; MacArthur was succeeded as supreme commander by General Matthew Ridgway in 1951. Unlike in the occupations of Germany and Austria, the Soviet Union had little to no influence in Japan, declining to participate because it did not want to place Soviet troops under MacArthur's direct command.

Occupied Japan by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers: The United States occupation of Japan ends as the Treaty of San Francisco, ratified September 8, 1951, comes into force.

The Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty, formally the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan and commonly known as the Treaty of Taipei, was a peace treaty between Japan and the Republic of China (ROC) signed in Taipei, Taiwan on 28 April 1952, and took effect on August 5 the same year, marking the formal end of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).

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.

The Dominican Civil War, also known as the April Revolution, took place between April 24, 1965, and September 3, 1965, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It started when civilian and military supporters of the overthrown democratically elected president Juan Bosch ousted the militarily-installed president Donald Reid Cabral from office. The second coup prompted General Elías Wessin y Wessin to organize elements of the military loyal to the dictator Reid ("loyalists") and launch an armed campaign against the "constitutionalist" rebels.

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.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

Vietnam War: Boxer Muhammad Ali refuses his induction into the United States Army and is subsequently stripped of his championship and license.

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces against Nazi Germany and Vichy France in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 to restore democracy in France. Following the 1958 Algiers putsch, he came out of retirement at the request of President René Coty, who appointed him Prime Minister. He commissioned a new constitution which was approved by voters in a referendum, establishing the Fifth Republic. He was subsequently elected President of France later that year, a position he held until his resignation in 1969. He is widely regarded as the greatest Frenchman of the 20th century.

Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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

The Dark Side of the Moon is the eighth studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973 by Capitol Records in the US and on 16 March 1973 by Harvest Records in the UK. Developed during live performances before recording began, it was conceived as a concept album that would focus on the pressures faced by the band during their arduous lifestyle, and also deal with the mental health problems of the former band member Syd Barrett, who had departed the group in 1968. New material was recorded in two sessions in 1972 and 1973 at EMI Studios in London.

The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, recorded in Abbey Road Studios goes to number 1 in the US charts, beginning a record-breaking 741-week chart run.

Cao Văn Viên was a four-star army general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He rose to the position of Chairman of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff. Considered one of "the most gifted" of South Vietnam's military leaders, he was previously called an "absolute key figure" and one of "the most important Vietnamese military leaders" in the U.S.-led fighting during the Vietnam War. Along with Trần Thiện Khiêm he was one of only two four-star generals in the entire history of South Vietnam.

General Cao Văn Viên, chief of the South Vietnamese military, departs for the US as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on victory.

The Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang, was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970, active until 1998, and formally designated a terrorist organisation by the West German government. The RAF described itself as a communist and anti-imperialist urban guerrilla group. It was engaged in armed resistance against what it considered a fascist state. Members of the RAF generally used the Marxist–Leninist term "faction" when they wrote in English. Early leadership included Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, and Horst Mahler.

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.

The President of Afghanistan was constitutionally the head of state and head of government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Armed Forces.

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

An aircraft carrier is a warship designed to carry, launch, recover and support aircraft at sea, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities that allow it to serve as a mobile, seagoing airbase. Typically it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a naval force to project seaborne air power far from national territory without depending on local airfields for the staging of aircraft operations. Since their inception in the early 20th century, aircraft carriers have evolved from wooden vessels used to deploy individual tethered reconnaissance balloons, to nuclear-powered supercarriers that carry dozens of fighters, strike aircraft, military helicopters, AEW&Cs and other types of aircraft such as UCAVs. While heavier fixed-wing aircraft such as airlifters, gunships and bombers have been launched from aircraft carriers, these aircraft do not often land on a carrier due to flight deck limitations.

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.

On 26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, exploded. With dozens of direct casualties and thousands of health complications stemming from the disaster, it is one of only two nuclear accidents rated at the maximum severity on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The response involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles. It remains the worst nuclear disaster and the most expensive disaster in history, with an estimated cost of US$700 billion.

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.

Maui is the second-largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2). It is the 17th-largest in the United States. Maui is one of Maui County's four sizable islands, along with Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, and Kahoʻolawe.

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.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and conducting covert operations. The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, and is sometimes metonymously called "Langley". A major member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA has reported to the director of national intelligence since 2004, and is focused on providing intelligence for the president and the Cabinet, though it also provides intelligence for a variety of other entities including the United States Armed Forces and foreign allies.

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

The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal, or simply Whitewater, was an American political controversy during the 1990s, surrounding the Whitewater Development Corporation, a real estate company owned by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim and Susan McDougal.

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

The Port Arthur massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on 28 April 1996 at Port Arthur, a tourist town in the Australian state of Tasmania. The perpetrator, Martin Bryant, killed 35 people and wounded 23 others, in the deadliest massacre in modern Australian history. The attack led to fundamental changes in Australia's gun laws.

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.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1980, adopted unanimously on April 28, 2011, after recalling previous resolutions on the situation in Côte d'Ivoire, including resolutions 1880 (2009), 1893 (2009), 1911 (2010), 1933 (2010), 1946 (2010), 1962 (2010) and 1975 (2011), the Council extended an arms embargo, ban on the trade of diamonds and targeted financial and travel sanctions on Ivorian officials until April 30, 2012.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1980 relating to Ivorian crisis is adopted.