Events on August 28 50
Year 475
The Roman general Orestes forces western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos to flee his capital city, Ravenna.
Year 489
Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, defeats Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy.
Year 632
Fatimah, daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad died, with her cause of death being a controversial topic among the Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims.
Year 663
Silla-Tang armies crush the Baekje restoration attempt and force Yamato Japan to withdraw from Korea in the Battle of Baekgang.
Year 1524
The Kaqchikel Maya rebel against their former Spanish allies during the Spanish conquest of Guatemala.
Year 1542
Turkish-Portuguese War (1538-57): Battle of Wofla: The Portuguese are scattered, their leader Christovão da Gama is captured and later executed.
Year 1565
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sights land near St. Augustine, Florida and founds the oldest continuously occupied European-established city in the continental United States.
Year 1640
Second Bishop's War: King Charles I's English army loses to a Scottish Covenanter force at the Battle of Newburn.
Year 1648
The Siege of Colchester ends when Royalists Forces surrender to the Parliamentary Forces after eleven weeks, during the Second English Civil War.
Year 1830
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam's role in US railroads.
Year 1833
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 receives royal assent, abolishing slavery through most of the British Empire.
Year 1849
After a month-long siege, Venice, which had declared itself independent as the Republic of San Marco, surrenders to Austria.
Year 1859
The Carrington event is the strongest geomagnetic storm on record to strike the Earth. Electrical telegraph service is widely disrupted.
Year 1861
American Civil War: Union forces attack Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in the Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries which lasts for two days.
Year 1862
American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Second Manassas. The battle ends on August 30.
Year 1867
The United States takes possession of the (at this point unoccupied) Midway Atoll.
Year 1901
Silliman University is founded in the Philippines. It is the first American private school in the country.
Year 1909
A group of mid-level Greek Army officers launches the Goudi coup, seeking wide-ranging reforms.
Year 1914
World War I: The Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.
Year 1943
Denmark in World War II: German authorities demand that Danish authorities crack down on acts of resistance. The next day, martial law is imposed on Denmark.
Year 1955
Black teenager Emmett Till is brutally murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent Civil Rights Movement.
Year 1957
U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond begins a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act of 1957; he stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.
Year 1963
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech
Year 1968
Rioting takes place in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention, triggering a brutal police crackdown.
Year 1988
Ramstein air show disaster: Three aircraft of the Frecce Tricolori demonstration team collide and the wreckage falls into the crowd. Seventy-five are killed and 346 seriously injured.
Year 1990
An F5 tornado strikes the Illinois cities of Plainfield and Joliet, killing 29 people.
Year 1993
The Galileo spacecraft discovers a moon, later named Dactyl, around 243 Ida, the first known asteroid moon.
Year 1998
Pakistan's National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the "Qur'an and Sunnah" the "supreme law" but the bill is defeated in the Senate.
Year 1998
Second Congo War: Loyalist troops backed by Angolan and Zimbabwean forces repulse the RCD and Rwandan offensive on Kinshasa.