Events on October 28 54
Year 312
Battle of the Milvian Bridge: Constantine I defeats Maxentius, becoming the sole Roman emperor in the West.
Year 456
The Visigoths brutally sack the Suebi's capital of Braga (Portugal), and the town's churches are burnt to the ground.
Year 969
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.
Year 1061
Empress Agnes, acting as regent for her son, brings about the election of bishop Cadalus, the antipope Honorius II.
Year 1420
Beijing is officially designated the capital of the Ming dynasty on the same year that the Forbidden City, the seat of government, is completed.
Year 1516
Battle of Yaunis Khan: Turkish forces under the Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha defeat the Mamluks near Gaza.
Year 1531
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.
Year 1538
The first university in the New World (in present-day Dominican Republic), the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, is established.
Year 1628
French Wars of Religion: The Siege of La Rochelle, which had lasted for 14 months, ends with the surrender of the Huguenots.
Year 1636
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.
Year 1664
The Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot, later to be known as the Royal Marines, is established.
Year 1707
The 1707 Hōei earthquake causes more than 5,000 deaths in Honshu, Shikoku and Kyūshū, Japan.
Year 1775
American Revolutionary War: A British proclamation forbids residents from leaving Boston.
Year 1776
American Revolutionary War: Battle of White Plains: British Army forces arrive at White Plains, attack and capture Chatterton Hill from the Americans.
Year 1834
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.
Year 1835
The United Tribes of New Zealand is established with the signature of the Declaration of Independence.
Year 1864
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.
Year 1886
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.
Year 1891
The Mino-Owari earthquake, the largest inland earthquake in Japan's history, strikes Aichi Prefecture.
Year 1893
Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathétique, receives its première performance in St. Petersburg, only nine days before the composer's death.
Year 1918
World War I: Czechoslovakia declares independence from Austria-Hungary marking the beginning of an independent Czechoslovak state, after 300 years.
Year 1918
A new Polish government in western Galicia is established, triggering the Polish-Ukrainian War.
Year 1919
The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January.
Year 1922
Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government.
Year 1928
Declaration of the Youth Pledge in Indonesia, the first time Indonesia Raya, now the national anthem, was sung.
Year 1929
Black Monday, a day in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which also saw major stock market upheaval.
Year 1940
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.
Year 1942
The Alaska Highway (Alcan Highway) is completed through Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.
Year 1948
Swiss chemist Paul Müller is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT.
Year 1949
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
Year 1956
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.
Year 1962
End of Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.
Year 1965
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.
Year 1971
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.
Year 1982
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.
Year 1990
The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic holds the first multiparty legislature election in the country's history.
Year 1995
289 people are killed and 265 injured in Baku Metro fire, the deadliest subway disaster in history.
Year 2005
Plame affair: Lewis Libby, Vice-president Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is indicted in the Valerie Plame case. Libby resigns later that day.
Year 2006
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.
Year 2007
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner becomes the first woman elected President of Argentina.
Year 2009
NASA successfully launches the Ares I-X mission, the only rocket launch for its later-cancelled Constellation program.
Year 2013
Five people are killed and 38 are injured after a car crashes into barriers just outside the Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China.
Year 2014
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.
Year ?
Emperor Nerva is forced by the Praetorian Guard to adopt general Marcus Ulpius Trajanus as his heir and successor.