Today in History, April 28

HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE

1503 - Spanish destroy French fleet at Cerignola, Sicily.

1655 - English fleet destroys pirate fleet of Bey of Tunis and releases prisoners in Algiers; Protestants in Vaudois district of Savoy are massacred.

1789 - On a return journey from Tahiti, the crew of British ship Bounty mutinies and sets Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors adrift in the South Pacific.

1876 - Queen Victoria is declared Empress of India.

1910 - Albanian revolt is suppressed by Turkish Army.

1936 - King Farouk ascends to throne in Egypt; Arab high command is formed to unite Arabs against Jewish claims.

1940 - US band leader Glenn Miller and his Orchestra record Pennsylvania 6-5000 for RCA Victor.

1944 - A rehearsal for D-Day ends with 750 US soldiers dead after their convoy ships are attacked by German torpedo boats off Slapton Sands, southwest England.

1945 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are summarily executed by communist partisans.

1947 - A six-man expedition sails from Peru aboard the balsa raft Kon-Tiki on a 101-day journey across the Pacific to Polynesia.

1952 - Japan regains sovereignty and independence when the peace treaty signed in San Francisco in 1951 by the US and 47 other nations comes into effect.

1965 - US marines land in the Dominican Republic following the overthrow of the government of Sir Donald Cabral.

1967 - Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the US Army.

1968 - Tokyo police restore order after 5000 people demonstrate for the return of Okinawa to Japan and an end to the Vietnam War.

1969 - Charles De Gaulle resigns as French president after voters reject major government reforms in a referendum.

1976 - India's Supreme Court upholds right of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's government to imprison political opponents without court hearing.

1977 - Andreas Baader and other members of the Baader-Meinhoff group are jailed for life after a trial lasting nearly two years in Stuttgart, Germany.

1980 - US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigns, after opposing the failed commando mission to rescue American hostages in Iran.

1987 - Australian businessman and adventurer Dick Smith becomes first person to fly over the North Pole in a helicopter.

1989 - Iran protests against the exhibition and sale of Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, at the Geneva international book fair.

1992 - A new, smaller Yugoslav republic is established by Serbia and Montenegro after four other republics - Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia - secede.

1993 - In Turkey, an avalanche of garbage triggered by a methane explosion kills at least 18 people in squatter huts near a city dump.

1995 - A leaking gas line explodes during morning rush hour in Taegu, South Korea, killing at least 103.

1996 - Thirty-five people are murdered and many more injured by a gunman at Tasmania's historic Port Arthur.

1997 - Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh's party wins a majority in parliamentary elections.

1998 - Nigeria's former deputy leader, General Oladipyo Diya, and five others are sentenced to death by firing squad for plotting to overthrow military leader General Sani Abacha.

1998 - British explorer David Hempleman-Adams reaches the geographic North Pole, becoming the first person to reach the earth's magnetic and geographic poles.

2001 - A Russian rocket lifts off from Central Asia bearing the first space tourist, California businessman Dennis Tito, and two cosmonauts on a journey to the international space station.

2002 - Alexander Lebed, a tough-talking general who played a key role in foiling the 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, dies in a helicopter crash.

2003 - Britain's GlaxoSmithKline announces it will reduce the price of its popular AIDS medication Combivir to 90 cents a day, from $US1.70, in 63 developing countries.

2005 - Iraq's National Assembly approves the country's first democratically elected government, tasked with formulating a new constitution for the nation.

2006 - The US army charges Lt Col Steven Jordan, who headed the interrogation centre at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib jail, making him the highest-ranking person charged in the prisoner abuse scandal.

2008 - Austrian Josef Fritzl, 73, confesses to imprisoning his daughter for 24 years in a windowless cell with a soundproofed door and fathering seven children.

2009 - Australia's fourth richest man, Visy Packaging empire boss Richard Pratt, dies aged 74.

2011 - A bomb tears through a cafe in Marrakesh's old quarter, killing at least 11 foreigners and three Moroccans.

2013 - British media reveals nurse Jacintha Saldanha left a note saying the hoax call of two Australian DJs led to her death; The fugitive owner of an illegally constructed building that collapsed, killing hundreds in Bangladesh, is captured as he tries to flee to India.

2014 - Fifty-two days after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared, Australian prime minister Tony Abbott announces the air search for its wreckage will cease but the underwater search will be expanded.

2015 - Family members farewell Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran on the eve of their execution in Indonesia.

2016 - An exhibition of works exclusively by Muslim artists under the age of 40 opens at an art gallery in Perth in an effort to break new ground.

2017 - Three Australian Islamic State jihadists are arrested at gunpoint in Lebanon.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS

King Edward IV of England (1442-1483); Charles Sturt, Australian explorer (1795-1869); Lionel Barrymore, US actor (1878-1954); Jack Fingleton, Australian cricketer (1908-1981); Harper Lee, US author (1926-2016); Saddam Hussein, former Iraqi president (1937-2006); Jay Leno, US TV personality (1950-); Kim Gordon, US singer-musician of Sonic Youth fame (1953-); Jimmy Barnes, Scottish-born Australian singer of Cold Chisel fame (1956-); John Daly, US golfer (1966-); Penelope Cruz, Spanish actress (1974-); Jessica Alba, American actress (1981-).

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

It takes a long time to understand nothing. - Edward Dahlberg, American author and critic (1900-1977).

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