On This Day

[Altobelli]

28 NOVEMBER

1520 Three ships under the command of explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first European ships to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific

1582 In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond for their marriage licence

1628 John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress, was born.

1660 At Gresham College in Central London, 12 men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Sir Robert Moray founded what was later known as the Royal Society, an organization dedicated to promoting excellence in science.

1757 The birth of the poet William Blake. His work included a poem that began 'And did those feet in ancient time', which became the words for the anthem Jerusalem.

1814 The Times newspaper was, for the first time, printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer. It signalled the beginning of the availability of newspapers to a mass audience.

1893 Women vote in a national election for the first time, in the New Zealand general election

1895 The first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago's Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours

1905 The Irish political party Sinn Fein was founded by Arthur Griffith in Dublin.

1909 Sergei Rachmaninoff makes the debut performance of his Piano Concerto No. 3, considered one of the most technically challenging concertos in the standard classical repertoire

1914 World War I: Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading

1919 Nancy Astor became Britain's first woman MP, holding a safe Plymouth seat for the Conservative Party in a by-election caused by her husband's elevation to the peerage.

1935 The Miles quadruplets (Ann, Ernest, Michael and Paul) were born in Cambridgeshire and were the first British quads to survive infancy.

1943 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran, to discuss war strategy

1967 All horse racing in Britain was suspended 'indefinitely' to help prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease.

1967 1st radio pulsars detected by British postgraduate Jocelyn Burnell and her supervisor Antony Hewish at Cambridge University

1968 The death of the children's author Enid Blyton. She wrote more than 800 books over 40 years including Noddy, The Famous Five and The Secret Seven.

1971 An English farmer uncovered a major immigrant smuggling operation when he rammed a plane which had landed at a disused airfield on his farm in Kimbolton, 10 miles from Huntingdon. The pilot escaped but police officers arrived soon after the incident and detained the five occupants of the plane.

1990 Margaret Thatcher made her last speech outside 10 Downing Street following her resignation as Prime Minister.

1993 The Northern Ireland peace process and Prime Minister John Major's credibility were dealt a blow when secret government contacts with the IRA were publicly disclosed.

1997 MPs in the House of Commons approved a Private Member's Bill, introduced by Labour MP Michael Foster, to ban fox hunting.

1999 Eleven people were injured when a nude swordsman attacked churchgoers at St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Church in London.

2002 Suicide bombers blow up an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya; their colleagues fail in their attempt to bring down Arkia Israel Airlines Flight 582 with missiles

2006 A modern spy drama unfolded following the death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London when traces of polonium-210 radiation were found at central London addresses.

2011 British company Captive Media announced details of its urinal mounted, urine-controlled games console for men. It called it the first 'hands-free' video gaming console of its kind, with games on offer including a skiing challenge, and a multiple choice pub quiz. A noted side effect was that the toilets became markedly cleaner, as a new premium was set on accuracy.

2013 A Newport man (James Howells) searched a landfill site in South Wales hoping to find a computer hard drive he threw away, worth over £4m. The drive contained 7,500 *******s, a virtual form of currency for use online. The drive was not found.

2013 The grand unveiling of TV's Coronation Street (Weatherfield) at its new home on Salford Quays, across the water from the BBC. In January 2014 the soap left its long established Quay Street site in Manchester city centre, which was sold for £26.5m.

2014 Jordan Winn was jailed for 13 months after he was caught driving at nearly 100mph in a 30mph zone. Winn blamed his Staffordshire bull terrier, who he said was in the footwell of his Volvo S60, for sitting on the accelerator pedal.

Famous Birthday's

William Blake
(1757 - 1827)

Henry Bacon
(1866 - 1924)

Berry Gordy
88th Birthday

Hugh McKenna, (rocker, Alex Harvey Band)
68th Birthday


Ed Harris
67th Birthday

Jeff Fahey
64th Birthday



Alessandro Altobelli
62nd Birthday

Martin Clunes
56th Birthday

Famous Deaths

James Naismith
(1861 - 1939)

Enrico Fermi
(1901 - 1954)

Jeffrey Dahmer
(1960 - 1994)

Jerry Edmonton, (Canadian drummer, Steppenwolf)
(1946 - 1993)



Leslie Nielsen
(1926 - 2010)

Famous Weddings

1582 Playwright & poet William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway

1936 Paleoanthropologist Raymond Arthur Dart (43) weds librarian Marjorie Gordon Frew

1938 Chinese politician Mao Zedong (44) weds Jiang Qing (24) in a small private ceremony

1962 Artist and peace activist Yoko Ono (30) weds film producer Anthony Cox

1986 NBC's Ahmad Rashad marriage proposal is accepted by Phylicia Ayers-Allen during halftime of Det Lions-NY Jets football game

50 Years Ago Album and Single # 1s

SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND - BEATLES.

LET THE HEARTACHES BEGIN - LONG JOHN BALDRY