What Happened on October 28th in History
30 historical events on this date
World War I: A new Polish government in western Galicia is established, triggering the PolishâUkrainian War.
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. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the...
World War I: Czech politicians peacefully take over the city of Prague, thus establishing the First Czechoslovak Republic.
The First Czechoslovak Republic, often colloquially referred to as the First Republic, was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The...
The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January.
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress designed to execute the 18th Amendment which established the prohibition of...
Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government.
Italian fascism, also called classical fascism or simply fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian fascism is...
Indonesia Raya, now the national anthem of Indonesia, is first played during the Second Indonesian Youth Congress.
"Indonesia Raya" is the national anthem of Indonesia. It has been the national anthem since the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence on 17 August 1945. The song was introduced by its composer,...
World War II: Greece rejects Italy's ultimatum. Italy invades Greece through Albania a few hours later.
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...
The Alaska Highway first connects Alaska to the North American railway network at Dawson Creek in Canada.
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...
Paul Hermann MĂŒller is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT.
Paul Hermann MĂŒller, 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...
Ecological disaster in Donora, Pennsylvania.
The 1948 Donora smog, also called the Donora death fog, was an air pollution disaster that occurred in Donora, Pennsylvania, beginning on October 27, 1948, and lasting several days. It was caused by...
An Air France Lockheed Constellation crashes in the Azores, killing all 48 people on board.
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 FranceâKLM Group and is one of the founding...
Aeroflot Flight 136 crashes near Krasnoyarsk, killing 19.
Aeroflot Flight 136 was an aviation disaster involving an Ilyushin Il-12P passenger aircraft operated by Aeroflot, which occurred on Thursday 28 October 1954 in Krasnoyarsk Krai, on the slope of...
Hungarian Revolution: A de facto ceasefire comes into effect between armed revolutionaries and Soviet troops, who begin to withdraw from Budapest. Communist officials and facilities come under attack by revolutionaries.
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949â1989) and the policies...
John XXIII is elected Pope.
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.
The Cuban Missile Crisis ends and Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.
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...
Pope Paul VI promulgates Nostra aetate, by which the Roman Catholic Church officially recognizes the legitimacy of non-Christian faiths.
Pope Paul VI was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council, which...
Prospero becomes the only British satellite to be launched by a British rocket.
The Prospero satellite, also known as the X-3, was launched by the United Kingdom in 1971. It was designed to undertake a series of experiments to study the effects of the space environment on...
The Spanish general election begins fourteen years of rule by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party.
A general election was held in Spain on 28 October 1982 to elect the members of the 2nd Cortes Generales under the Spanish Constitution of 1978. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for...
Aloha Island Air Flight 1712, a Twin Otter 300, crashed into terrain at night in Hawaii killing all 20 occupants onboard.
Aloha IslandAir Flight 1712 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight that took place on October 28, 1989. The flight originated in Hana Airport, Maui, Hawaiʻi and stopped over in Kahului Airport,...
Georgia holds its only free election under Soviet rule.
Parliamentary elections were held in the Georgian SSR on 28 October 1990, with a second round on 11 November. They were the first free parliamentary elections in Georgia since 1919 and saw Round...
The Baku Metro fire sees 289 people killed and 270 injured.
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...
A funeral service takes place at the Bykivnia graves for Ukrainians who were killed by the Soviet secret police.
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...
Cristina FernĂĄndez de Kirchner becomes the first directly elected female President of Argentina.
Cristina Elisabet FernĂĄndez de Kirchner is an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the 55th President of Argentina from 2007 to 2015, and later as the 37th Vice President of Argentina under...
The 28 October 2009 Peshawar bombing kills 117 and wounds 213.
The 28 October 2009 Peshawar bombing occurred in Peshawar, Pakistan, when a car bomb was detonated in a Mina Bazar of the city. The bomb killed 137 people and injured more than 200 others, making it...
NASA successfully launches the Ares I-X mission, the only rocket launch for its short-lived Constellation program.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program and for research in aeronautics and...
US President Barack Obama signs the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American...
Five people are killed and 38 are injured after a car crashes into barriers at Tiananmen Square in China.
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...
A 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 Wallops Island, Virginia.
Orbital-3, also known as Orb-3, was an attempted flight of Cygnus, an automated cargo spacecraft developed by United Statesâbased company Orbital Sciences, on October 28, 2014. The mission was...
Jair Bolsonaro is elected president of Brazil with 57 million votes, with Workers' Party candidate Fernando Haddad as the runner-up. It is the first time in 16 years that a Workers' Party candidate is not elected president.
Jair Messias Bolsonaro is a Brazilian politician and former military officer who served as the 38th president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023. He previously served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies...
The 2023 Rugby World Cup final is held at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France. It saw South Africa defeat New Zealand 12 to 11, claiming their fourth Webb Ellis Cup, becoming the first nation to do so.
The 2023 Rugby World Cup final was a rugby union match played on 28 October 2023 at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France. It marked the culmination of the 2023 Rugby World Cup and was played...
Hurricane Melissa makes landfall near Black River, Jamaica, killing over 30 people, as well as tying the 1935 Labor Day hurricane as the most intense landfall in the North Atlantic.
Hurricane Melissa was an extremely powerful tropical cyclone that made a catastrophic landfall in Jamaica in late October 2025. By maximum sustained winds, it is tied with Hurricane Allen as the...