Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

Nerva was a Roman emperor from AD 96 to 98. Nerva became emperor when aged almost 66, after a lifetime of imperial service under Nero and the succeeding rulers of the Flavian dynasty.

Emperor Nerva is forced by the Praetorian Guard to adopt general Marcus Ulpius Trajanus as his heir and successor.

Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius was a Roman emperor from 306 until his death in 312. Despite ruling in Italy and North Africa, and having the recognition of the Senate in Rome, he was not recognized as a legitimate emperor by his fellow emperors.

Maxentius is proclaimed Roman emperor.

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge took place between the Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius on 28 October AD 312. It takes its name from the Milvian Bridge, an important route over the Tiber. Constantine won the battle and started on the path that led him to end the Tetrarchy and become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Maxentius drowned in the Tiber during the battle; his body was later taken from the river and decapitated, and his head was paraded through the streets of Rome on the day following the battle before being sent to Africa. According to Christian chroniclers Eusebius of Caesarea and Lactantius, the battle marked the beginning of Constantine's conversion to Christianity. Eusebius of Caesarea recounts that Constantine and his soldiers had a vision sent by the Christian God. This was interpreted as a promise of victory if the sign of the Chi Rho, the first two letters of Christ's name in Greek, was painted on the soldiers' shields. The Arch of Constantine, erected in celebration of the victory, certainly attributes Constantine's success to divine intervention; however, the monument does not display any overtly Christian symbolism.

Battle of the Milvian Bridge: Constantine I defeats Maxentius, becoming the sole Roman emperor in the West.

The Visigoths were a Gothic people who emerged in the Balkans during late antiquity. Probably descended from the Thervingi who entered the Roman Empire in 376 and defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople (378), they were first united under Alaric I (395–410), whose forces alternately fought and allied with Rome before famously sacking the city in 410.

The Visigoths brutally sack the Suebi's capital of Braga (Portugal), and the town's churches are burnt to the ground.

The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Eastern part of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'.

Byzantine general Michael Bourtzes seizes one of Antioch's main wall towers, which he defends against repeated attacks for three days until the reinforcements led by the stratopedarches Peter arrive and secure the city for the Byzantines.

Agnes of Poitou was the queen of Germany from 1043 and empress of the Holy Roman Empire from 1046 until 1056 as the wife of Emperor Henry III. From 1056 to 1061, she ruled the Holy Roman Empire as regent during the minority of their son Henry IV.

Empress Agnes, acting as regent for her son, brings about the election of bishop Cadalus, the antipope Honorius II.

Smyrna was an Ancient Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. Since 1930, the city's official name has been İzmir.

The lower town of Smyrna is captured by Crusaders.

The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family, collectively called the Southern Ming, survived until 1662.

Beijing is officially designated the capital of the Ming dynasty on the same year that the Forbidden City, the seat of government, is completed.

Christian I was a German noble and Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union. He was king of Denmark (1448–1481), Norway (1450–1481) and Sweden (1457–1464). From 1460 to 1481, he was also duke of Schleswig and count of Holstein. He was the first king of the House of Oldenburg.

Christian I is crowned king of Denmark.

Ladislaus the Posthumous, known as Ladislaus V, was Duke of Austria and King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia. He was the posthumous son of Albert II of Germany with Elizabeth of Luxembourg. Albert had bequeathed all his realms to his future son on his deathbed, but only the estates of Austria accepted his last will. Fearing an Ottoman invasion, the majority of the Hungarian lords and prelates offered the crown to Władysław III of Poland. The Hussite noblemen and towns of Bohemia did not acknowledge the hereditary right of Albert's descendants to the throne, but also did not elect a new king.

Ladislaus the Posthumous is crowned king of Bohemia in Prague.

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish transatlantic voyages in the name of the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Christopher Columbus lands in Cuba on his first voyage to the New World.

The Battle of Yaunis Khan, also known as the Battle of Khan Yunis, was fought on October 28, 1516, between the Ottoman Empire and the Mamluk Sultanate. The Mamluk cavalry forces led by Janbirdi al-Ghazali attacked the Ottomans that were trying to cross Gaza on their way to Egypt. The Ottomans, led by Grand Vizier Hadım Sinan Pasha, were able to break the Egyptian Mamluk cavalry charge. Al-Ghazali was wounded during the confrontation, and the left-over Mamluk forces and their commander Al-Ghazali retreated to Cairo.

Battle of Yaunis Khan: Turkish forces under the Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha defeat the Mamluks near Gaza.

The Battle of Amba Sel was fought on 28 October 1531, between the Ethiopians under their Emperor Dawit II, and the forces of Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi of the Adal Sultanate.

Battle of Amba Sel: Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi again defeats the army of Lebna Dengel, Emperor of Ethiopia. The southern part of Ethiopia falls under Imam Ahmad's control.

A university is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. University is derived from the Latin phrase universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

The first university in the New World (in present-day Dominican Republic), the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, is established.

The French Wars of Religion were a series of civil wars between French Catholics and Protestants from 1562 to 1598. Between two and four million people died from violence, famine or disease directly caused by the conflict, and it severely damaged the power of the French monarchy. The fighting ended with a compromise in 1598, when Henry of Navarre, who converted to Catholicism in 1593, was proclaimed King Henry IV of France and issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted substantial rights and freedoms to the Huguenots. However, Catholics continued to disapprove of Protestants and of Henry, and his assassination in 1610 triggered a fresh round of Huguenot rebellions in the 1620s.

French Wars of Religion: The Siege of La Rochelle, which had lasted for 14 months, ends with the surrender of the Huguenots.

The Massachusetts General Court, formally the General Court of Massachusetts, is the bicameral state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts located in the state capital of Boston. The name "General Court" is a holdover from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, when the colonial assembly, in addition to making laws, sat also as a judicial court of appeals. Before the adoption of the state constitution in 1780, it was called the Great and General Court, but the official title was shortened in the drafting of the state constitution by John Adams. It is a general legislature with plenary power to make law in and for Massachusetts. It is a bicameral parliament derived in some respects from the Westminster model. The upper house is the Massachusetts Senate, comprising 40 members. The lower house, the Massachusetts House of Representatives, has 160 members. It meets in the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill in Boston.

A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes the first college in what would become the United States, today known as Harvard University.

His Majesty's Royal Marines are the United Kingdom's special operations-capable naval infantry force and constitute one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy. They provide a company-sized sub-unit to the Special Forces Support Group, personnel for landing craft crews, and personnel for the Royal Navy's military bands. The Corps traces its origins to the "Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot", formed on 28 October 1664. The first Royal Marines commando unit was formed at Deal, Kent, on 14 February 1942 and was designated "The Royal Marine Commando".

The Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot, later to be known as the Royal Marines, is established.

The 1707 Hōei earthquake struck south-central Japan at around 13:45 local time on 28 October 1707. It was the largest earthquake in Japanese history until it was surpassed by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. It caused moderate-to-severe damage throughout southwestern Honshu, Shikoku and southeastern Kyūshū. The earthquake, and the resulting destructive tsunami, caused more than 5,000 casualties. This event ruptured all of the segments of the Nankai megathrust simultaneously, the only earthquake known to have done this, with an estimated magnitude of 8.6 ML or 8.7 Mw. It possibly also triggered the last eruption of Mount Fuji 49 days later.

The 1707 Hōei earthquake causes more than 5,000 deaths in Honshu, Shikoku and Kyūshū, Japan.

Gulliver's Travels, originally titled Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, is a 1726 satirical prose novel by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift. It is one of the most famous classics of both English and world literature, and popularised the fictional island of Lilliput. The poet John Gay remarked of the work, "It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery." The novel satirises human nature and the imaginary "travellers' tales" literary subgenre, and it has been adapted for theatrical performances, films, television, and radio over the centuries.

The novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is published.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence or simply the American Revolution, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and, commanded by George Washington, defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British Crown acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

American Revolutionary War: A British proclamation forbids residents from leaving Boston.

The Battle of White Plains took place during the New York and New Jersey campaign of the American Revolutionary War on October 28, 1776, near White Plains, New York. Following the retreat of George Washington's Continental Army northward from New York City, British General William Howe landed troops in Westchester County, intending to cut off Washington's escape route. Alerted to this move, Washington retreated farther, establishing a position in the village of White Plains but failing to establish firm control over local high ground.

American Revolutionary War: Battle of White Plains: British Army forces arrive at White Plains, attack and capture Chatterton Hill from the Americans.

The Pinjarra massacre, in the past called the Battle of Pinjarra, occurred on 28 October 1834 in Pinjarra, Western Australia when a group of Bindjareb Noongar people were attacked by a detachment of 25 soldiers, police, and settlers led by Governor James Stirling. According to Stirling, "about 60 or 70" of the Bindjareb people were present at the camp and John Roe, who also participated, estimated about 70–80. This roughly agrees with an estimate of 70 by an unidentified eyewitness.

The Pinjarra massacre occurred in the Swan River Colony at present-day Pinjarra, Western Australia. An estimated 30 Noongar people were killed by British colonists.

The United Tribes of New Zealand was a confederation of Māori tribes based in the north of the North Island, existing from 1835 to 1840. It received limited acknowledgement from Great Britain which shortly thereafter proclaimed the foundation of the Colony of New Zealand upon the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The United Tribes of New Zealand is established with the signature of the Declaration of Independence.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by Southern states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with a Union victory, dissolution of the Confederacy and the national abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

American Civil War: The Battle of Fair Oaks & Darbytown Road (also known as the Second Battle of Fair Oaks) ends: Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant withdraw from Fair Oaks, Virginia, after failing to breach the Confederate defenses around Richmond, Virginia.

New York Harbor is a tidal body of water forming the upper part of New York Bay within the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary. Located on the East Coast of the United States at the mouth of the Hudson River, it is connected to Long Island Sound by the East River, which despite its name is actually a tidal strait.

In New York Harbor, President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty. The first ticker tape parade takes place in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticker tape into the streets as the statue is dedicated.

The 1891 Mino–Owari earthquake struck the Japanese provinces of Mino and Owari in the Nōbi Plain in the early morning of October 28 with a surface-wave magnitude of 8.0 and moment magnitude of 7.5. The event, also referred to as the Nōbi earthquake , the Great Gifu earthquake , or the Great Nōbi earthquake , is the largest known inland earthquake to have occurred in the Japanese archipelago.

The Mino-Owari earthquake, the largest inland earthquake in Japan's history, strikes Aichi Prefecture.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire, including the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, the opera Eugene Onegin, and the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.

Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathétique, receives its première performance in St. Petersburg, only nine days before the composer's death.

Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country located at the southern end of Central America in North America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Its capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half of the country's over 4 million inhabitants.

Panama and Uruguay establish diplomatic links.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I caused 15 to 22 million deaths, including those resulting from war crimes and genocides. The war also contributed to the spread of the Spanish flu pandemic. The conflict saw important developments in weaponry, including machine guns, artillery, aircraft, chemical weapons, and tanks.

World War I: Czechoslovakia declares independence from Austria-Hungary marking the beginning of an independent Czechoslovak state, after 300 years.

The Polish–Ukrainian War, from November 1918 to July 1919, was a conflict between the Second Polish Republic and Ukrainian forces.

A new Polish government in western Galicia is established, triggering the Polish-Ukrainian War.

The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January.

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement that rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe. Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism, fascism is at the far-right end of the traditional left–right spectrum. What constitutes a precise definition of fascism has been a longrunning and complex debate among scholars and politicians.

Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government.

The Youth Pledge, officially titled as Decision of the Congress of Indonesian Youth is the nationalist pledge made by young Indonesians on 28 October 1928, which defined the identity of Indonesians. The decision proclaimed three ideas: one motherland, one nation, and a unifying language.

Declaration of the Youth Pledge in Indonesia, the first time Indonesia Raya, now the national anthem, was sung.

Black Monday refers to specific Mondays when undesirable or turbulent events have occurred. It has been used to designate massacres, military battles, and stock market crashes.

Black Monday, a day in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which also saw major stock market upheaval.

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, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. 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: Greece rejects Italy's ultimatum. The Greco-Italian War begins. Italy invades Greece through Albania, marking Greece's entry into World War II.

The Alaska Highway is a highway in North America which was constructed during World War II to connect the contiguous United States with Alaska through Canada. It begins at the junction with a few Canadian highways in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and runs to Delta Junction, Alaska, via Whitehorse, Yukon. When it was completed in 1942, it was about 1,700 miles long, but in 2012, it was only 1,387 mi (2,232 km). This is due to the realignments of the highway over the years, which has rerouted and straightened many sections. The highway opened to the public in 1948. Once legendary for being a rough, challenging drive, the highway is now paved over its entire length. Its component highways are British Columbia Highway 97, Yukon Highway 1, and Alaska Route 2.

The Alaska Highway (Alcan Highway) is completed through Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.

Paul Hermann Müller, also known as Pauly Mueller, was a Swiss chemist who received the 1948 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine for his 1939 discovery of insecticidal qualities and use of DDT in the control of vector diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.

Swiss chemist Paul Müller is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT.

Air France, stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and is one of the founding members of the SkyTeam airline alliance. As of 2013, Air France served 29 destinations in France and operates worldwide scheduled passenger and cargo services to 201 destinations in 78 countries and also carried 46,803,000 passengers in 2019. The airline maintains its global and domestic hub at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Air France's corporate headquarters, previously in Montparnasse, Paris, are located at the Roissypôle complex on the grounds of Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris.

An Air France Lockheed Constellation crashes in the Azores killing all people on board, including the French former middleweight world champion boxer Marcel Cerdan and French violinist Ginette Neveu

Elvis Aaron Presley was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is widely regarded as one of the most culturally significant figures of the 20th century. Presley's energetic and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a mixture of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, brought both great success and initial controversy.

Elvis Presley receives a polio vaccination on national TV. This single event is credited with raising immunization levels in the United States from 0.6% to over 80% in just six months.

Pope John XXIII was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 28 October 1958 until his death on 3 June 1963.

John XXIII is elected Pope.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis, was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in the United Kingdom, Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis lasted from 16 to 28 October 1962. The confrontation is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.

End of Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.

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. 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. officials deny any involvement in bombing North Vietnam.

Nostra aetate, or the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions, is an official declaration of the Second Vatican Council, an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. It was promulgated on 28 October 1965 by Pope Paul VI. Its name comes from its incipit, the first few words of the opening sentence of the Latin version, as is tradition. It passed the Council by a vote of 2,221 to 88 of the assembled bishops.

Nostra aetate, the "Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions" of the Second Vatican Council, is promulgated by Pope Paul VI; it absolves the Jews of responsibility for the death of Jesus, reversing Innocent III's 760-year-old declaration.

A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation (GPS), broadcasting, scientific research, and Earth observation. Additional military uses are reconnaissance, early warning, signals intelligence and, potentially, weapon delivery. Other satellites include the final rocket stages that place satellites in orbit and formerly useful satellites that later become defunct.

Britain launches the satellite Prospero into low Earth orbit atop a Black Arrow carrier rocket from Launch Area 5B at Woomera, South Australia, the only British satellite to date launched by a British rocket.

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social democratic political party in Spain. The PSOE has been in government longer than any other political party in modern democratic Spain: from 1982 to 1996 under Felipe González, 2004 to 2011 under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and since 2018 under Pedro Sánchez.

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party wins elections, leading to the first Socialist government in Spain after death of Franco; Felipe González becomes Prime Minister-elect.

The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Georgia, the Georgian SSR, or simply Georgia, was one of the republics of the Soviet Union from its occupation by the Red Army in 1921 to its independence in 1991. Coterminous with the present-day republic of Georgia including the contested regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it was based on the traditional territory of Georgia, which had existed as a series of states in the Caucasus prior to the annexation by the Russian Empire in the course of the 19th century and from 1918 to 1921 as the Democratic Republic of Georgia. The Georgian SSR was formed in 1921 and subsequently incorporated in the Soviet Union in 1922. Until 1936 it was a part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which existed as a union republic within the USSR. From November 18, 1989, the Georgian SSR declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws. The republic was renamed the Republic of Georgia on November 14, 1990, and subsequently became independent before the dissolution of the Soviet Union on April 9, 1991, whereupon each former SSR became a sovereign state.

The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic holds the first multiparty legislature election in the country's history.

On 28 October 1995, a fire broke out in the subway system of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, between the Ulduz and Nariman Narimanov stations. According to official figures, the fire killed 289 people: 286 passengers and three rescue workers, while 270 people were injured. The fire was deemed to have been caused by an electrical malfunction, but the possibility of sabotage was not excluded.

289 people are killed and 265 injured in Baku Metro fire, the deadliest subway disaster in history.

The Plame affair was a political scandal that revolved around journalist Robert Novak's public identification of Valerie Plame as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer in 2003.

Plame affair: Lewis Libby, Vice-president Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is indicted in the Valerie Plame case. Libby resigns later that day.

The Bykivnia graves are a National Historic Memorial next to the former village of Bykivnia within Kyiv woodland, Bykivnia Forest. During the Stalinist period in the Soviet Union, it was one of the unmarked mass grave sites where the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, disposed of thousands of murdered "enemies of the Soviet state". Bykivnia as a residential place still exists as a locality with the same Bykivnia Forest. The National Memorial is located across Brovarskyi Prospect from Bykivnia, next to the former Rybne Soviet fishery in the thick of the woods.

The funeral service takes place for those executed at Bykivnia forest, outside Kiev, Ukraine. 817 Ukrainian civilians (out of some 100,000) executed by Bolsheviks at Bykivnia in 1930s/1940s are reburied.

Cristina Elísabet Fernández de Kirchner is an Argentine lawyer, politician and convicted criminal who served as the 55th President of Argentina from 2007 to 2015, and later as the 37th Vice President of Argentina under President Alberto Fernández from 2019 to 2023. The widow of Néstor Kirchner, she was also First Lady during his presidency from 2003 to 2007. She was the second female president of Argentina after Isabel Perón and the first to be directly elected to office. Ideologically self-identified as a Peronist and a progressive, her political approach is called Kirchnerism. Since 2024, she has been the president of the Justicialist Party.

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner becomes the first woman elected President of Argentina.

The 28 October 2009 Peshawar bombing occurred in Peshawar, Pakistan, when a car bomb was detonated in a Mina Bazar. The bomb killed 137 people and injured more than 200 others, making it the deadliest attack in Peshawar's history. Pakistani government officials believe the Taliban to be responsible, but both Taliban and Al-Qaeda sources have denied involvement in the attack.

The 28 October 2009 Peshawar bombing kills 117 and wounds 213.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program, as well as research in aeronautics and space. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NASA operates ten field centers across the US and is organized into three mission directorates: Human Spaceflight, Research and Technology, and Science. Established in 1958 amid the Space Race, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the US space program a distinct civilian orientation focused on peaceful applications. Since then, it has led most American spaceflight programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the Apollo program, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS), and the ongoing multinational Artemis program.

NASA successfully launches the Ares I-X mission, the only rocket launch for its later-cancelled Constellation program.

On 28 October 2013, a car ran over pedestrians and crashed in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, in a terrorist suicide attack. Five people died in the incident; three inside the vehicle and two others nearby. Police identified the driver as Usmen Hasan and the two passengers as his wife, Gulkiz Gini, and his mother, Kuwanhan Reyim. An additional 38 people were injured.

Five people are killed and 38 are injured after a car crashes into barriers just outside the Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China.

Antares, known during early development as Taurus II, is an American expendable medium-lift launch vehicle developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation with financial support from NASA under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program awarded in February 2008. It was developed alongside Orbital's automated cargo spacecraft, Cygnus, which also received COTS funding. Like other Orbital launch vehicles, Antares leveraged lower-cost, off-the-shelf parts and designs. Since 2018, the rocket has been manufactured by Northrop Grumman.

An unmanned Antares rocket carrying NASA's Cygnus CRS Orb-3 resupply mission to the International Space Station explodes seconds after taking off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia.