August 28

430 Saint Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, died aged 76 on August 28, 430 in Hippo, while the Vandals were besieging his Episcopal city. As he lay dying, Augustine had the penitential psalms copied on parchment and fixed to the wall of his room so he could read them from bed. Augustine wrote about 230 books and treatises and in addition around 350 of his sermons survive today. More of Saint Augustine's words survive than those of any other writer of antiquity.

The Triumph of Saint Augustine painted by Claudio Coello, circa. 1664

1513 Six years before embarking on his voyage around the world, Ferdinand Magellan was sent to Morocco where he fought in the Battle of Azamor (August 28 and 29, 1513) and received a severe knee wound while fighting against the Moorish-Moroccan stronghold. As a result he walked with a limp for the rest of his life.

1565 When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sighted land near St. Augustine, Florida on August 28, 1565, he landed and founded St. Augustine, Florida. It was the first successful Spanish settlement in La Florida and the most significant city in the region for nearly three centuries. St. Augustine is the oldest continuously-inhabited, European-established town in the continental United States.

The Government House built on original site of the colonial governor's residence. By Ebyabe

1713 The French horn made its first known debut in the 1664 comedy-ballet La Princesse d’Elide in Paris, but did not officially enter the Imperial court orchestra in Vienna until 1712. From there it was quickly adopted into Neapolitan opera, the most fashionable in Europe at the time. An early use of the horn in Neapolitan opera was Alessandro Scarlatti's Il genio austriaco: Il Sole, Flora, Zefiro, Partenope e Sebeto, performed August 28, 1713 as part of the celebrations for the Empress Elizabeth Christina's birthday.

1749 German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on August 28, 1749 in Frankfurt-am-Main, then an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire to retired lawyer Johann Kaspar Goethe,  and Katharine Elisabeth Textor. A precocious youngster, Johann wrote a story in seven languages when he was only 10. He acquired from his mother the knack of story telling; and from a toy puppet show in his nursery his first interest in the stage. Johann wrote his first plays for this small puppet theater.

1774 Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, was born to a socially prominent New York Episcopalian family on August 28, 1774. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley was a surgeon who served as Chief Health Officer for the Port of New York. He later served as the first professor of anatomy at Columbia College.

1789 German-English astronomer William Herschel discovered Saturn's sixth largest moon on August 28, 1789, during the first use of his new 1.2 m (47 in) telescope, then the largest in the world. It was later named Enceladus, after the giant Enceladus of Greek mythology by William Herschel's son John Herschel. The name was chosen because Saturn, known in Greek mythology as Cronus, was the leader of the Titans.

Replica of the telescope used by Herschel 

1793 On August 28, 1793 the Chevalier de Rougeville visited Marie Antoinette in her cell in a final attempt to save her from the guillotine. He threw a carnation behind the stove and signaled to her. When the queen was left alone she picked up the flower and found behind the petals a tiny note. Money was being raised to bribe her guard, Gilbert. She used a needle to prick out the answer on a piece of paper, which she handed to Gilbert. The guard in two minds waited for five days before telling his superiors.

1811 Four months after being expelled from Oxford University, Percy Bysshe Shelley eloped to Scotland with merchant's daughter Harriet Westbrook, who was a pupil at the same boarding school as Shelley's sisters. They married on August 28, 1811. Three years later Shelley abandoned Harriet, who was pregnant with their son Charles, and eloped with Mary Godwin. Harriet drowned herself in London's Serpentine River  in December 1816, which produced great pangs of guilt in Shelley.

1830 Tom Thumb, the first railway locomotive built in America, raced a horse-drawn railroad car over a nine-mile course on August 28, 1830. Tom Thumb was well ahead of the horse-drawn car when the blower belt came off the pulley, causing the engine to lose its steam. It fell behind and lost the race.

A 1927 replica of Tom Thumb

1833 All slaves in the British Empire were released by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which received royal assent on August 28, 1833. When abolitionist William Wilberforce heard this on his deathbed, he mumbled, "Thank God that I have lived to witness a day when England is willing to give 20 million sterling for the abolition of slavery." Compensation was paid to 46,000 slave owners, but the 800,000 freed slaves received nothing.

Poster for an event in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1849, commemorating the end of slavery 

1839 Author and politician Benjamin Disraeli married Mary Anne Wyndham Lewis on August 28, 1839 at St Georges, Hanover Square, London. A well to do widow of a political colleague of Disraeli's, she was 12 years older than him. Mary was young looking and pretty but eccentric in her dress sense and general character. They had a good marriage, Disraeli described her as “A pretty little woman, a flirt and a rattle: indeed gifted with a volubility I should think unequaled.”

1841 The first international cricket match took place as early as August 28, 1841 when 18 members of the New York club travelled to Toronto to play a Canadian "eleven." They played for a stake of $250 a side, and in front of a decent crowd, the American's won by ten wickets.

1844 On August 28, 1844, Karl Marx met the German socialist Friedrich Engels at the Café de la Régence in Paris. Engels was a textile manufacturer whose ideas were in complete accord with Marx’s and they began a lifelong friendship. In late 1847, Marx and Engels began writing a program of action for the Communist League. Written from December 1847 to January 1848, The Communist Manifesto was first published on  February 21, 1848.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

1850 Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin was first performed under the direction of Franz Liszt in Weimar, in present-day Germany on August 28, 1850. The opera is notable for containing the famous "Bridal Chorus," also known as "Here Comes the Bride," which is often played during wedding ceremonies. 

1898 In 1893 American pharmacist Caleb B. Bradburn developed a sweet, cola-flavored, carbonated beverage, which was known as "Brad's Drink". It was intended to cure stomach pains and was sold for five cents a glass at soda fountains. His original recipe was a concoction of rare oils, carbonated water, cola nuts, vanilla and sugar. Bradburn renamed his syrup Pepsi Cola on August 28, 1898, partly in imitation of Coca-Cola and partly as he was marketing it as a cure for peptic ulcers.

The pharmacy of Caleb Bradham with a Pepsi dispenser

1901 Silliman University in Dumaguete, Negros Oriental, Philippines, was the first American private school to be founded in the country on August 28, 1901. Silliman Hall is the oldest standing American structure in the Philippines. Some of the materials used to build it were salvaged from an old theater in New York.

1907 United Parcel Service (UPS) was started in Seattle by two teenagers, James Casey and Claude Ryan, with one bicycle and $100 borrowed from a friend on August 28, 1907. Their company motto was "best service and lowest rates".

1922 The first radio commercial was broadcast on New York City's WEAF (now WFAN) on August 28, 1922. The real estate company Queensboro Corporation Company paid $100 for 10 minutes of air time in which they advertised a new apartment complex in Jackson Heights, Queens, near the just-completed #7 subway line.

1937 Toyota Motors was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda on August 28, 1937, as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. The first vehicles were originally sold under the name "Toyoda"  from the family name of Kiichirō Toyoda. In 1936 the company decided for a new name and held a competition. Toyota was chosen out of the 27,000 entries because the number of strokes to write Toyota in Japanese (eight) was thought to bring luck and prosperity.

1953 Nippon Television, commonly known as Nippon TV, started broadcasting on August 28, 1953. It was the first commercial television station in Japan. On its first day of broadcasting, Nippon TV aired Japan's first television program and also showcased the country's first TV advertisement, which was for Seikosha clocks.

1955 On August 28, 1955 African-American teenager Emmett Till was murdered near Money, Mississippi, for allegedly flirting with a white woman. His death energized the nascent American civil rights movement.

1958 Onions are the only crop to be completely banned from trading futures. In 1955, two onion traders, Sam Siegel and Vincent Kosuga, cornered the onion futures market on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange by crashing the price of a 50lb bag of onions to lower than the cost of the bag that carried them. This drove many onion farmers into bankruptcy. Farmers and buyers were so angry that President Eisenhower banned the entire market on August 28, 1958.

1963 At the climax of a Washington interracial march, Dr Martin Luther King gave his famous "I had a dream" speech to 250,000 followers on August 28, 1963. The notes for King's "dream speech" did not contain the passage that started with "I have a dream." However, when the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who was standing behind him cried out: "Tell ’em about the dream, Martin!," King put his notes aside, and started "preaching" improvisationally, punctuating his points with "I have a dream."

1963 The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge opened for commuter traffic on August 28, 1963, after three years of construction. A floating bridge in Washington State, US, it carried State Route 520 across Lake Washington from the Montlake/Union Bay district of Seattle to Medina. Its 2,310 meters (7,580 ft) floating section was the longest floating bridge in the world until April 11, 2016, when its replacement exceeded it by 130 feet

1965 Fred DeLuca's dream was to become a medical doctor and Dr Peter Buck suggested he open a submarine sandwich shop to help pay for his education. Buck offered to become De Luca's partner, and their first Pete's Super Submarines" shop was opened on August 28, 1965. As Pete's Submarines sounded like Pizza Marines they renamed their shop "Pete's Subway." Eventually in 1968, the fast food shop was shortened to simply "Subway" as it is known today.

1993 On August 28, 1993, NASA's Galileo spacecraft became the first probe to discover a moon orbiting an asteroid. The asteroid in question is 243 Ida, and its moon was named Dactyl. The Galileo spacecraft conducted a flyby of the asteroid and its moon as part of its mission to study the Jupiter system.

1996 Prince Charles and Lady Diana, Princess of Wales's marriage was dissolved on August 28, 1996 in a London basement at 10:27 am. Charles and Diana were 500 miles apart at the time. The court action cost $31.00.

2010 The world’s longest domestic cat, a grey tabby Maine Coon called Stewie, from the American state of Nevada. Stewie was measured at 123 cm (48.5 in) on August 28, 2010 and died in 2013. He also held the record for the longest cat tail, at 41cm (16.5in).

2014 The tallest ever sunflower measured 9.17 m (30 ft 1 in) and was grown by Hans-Peter Schiffer from the town of Karst in Nordrhein Westfalen, Germany, as verified on August 28, 2014. The gardener has held the record continuously three times previously - in 2009 (8.03 metres), 2012 (8.23 metres) and 2013 (8.75 metres).