28 December in history

5 events that happened on 28 December, from 1065 to 1908.

  1. ✦ Anniversary of the day

    1065 CE 961 years ago

    Edward the Confessor's Westminster Abbey is consecrated

    Edward the Confessor's new abbey church at Westminster was consecrated, though the king was too ill to attend and died a week later. Every crowned English monarch since 1066 has been crowned there.

  2. 1612 CE 414 years ago

    Galileo observes Neptune without realising it

    While observing Jupiter, Galileo recorded a faint 'star' that was in fact Neptune. He did not recognise it as a planet, and its formal discovery came only in 1846.

  3. 1832 CE 194 years ago

    John C. Calhoun becomes the first US vice-president to resign

    John C. Calhoun resigned the vice-presidency to take a Senate seat, where he could better defend South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis. He had served under both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

  4. 1895 CE 131 years ago

    The Lumière brothers hold the first paid public film screening

    At the Grand Café in Paris, Auguste and Louis Lumière projected ten short films to a paying audience. The screening is often taken as the birth of cinema.

    Paris

  5. 1908 CE 118 years ago

    An earthquake and tsunami destroy Messina

    A powerful earthquake and tsunami struck the Strait of Messina, destroying Messina in Sicily and Reggio Calabria. Around 75,000 to 80,000 people died, making it Europe's deadliest recorded earthquake.

    Sicily

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