December 28

• 418 - St. Boniface I becomes Pope
• 1065 - Westminster Abbey is consecrated.
• 1832 - John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign.
• 1836 - South Australia and Adelaide are founded
• 1846 - Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.
• 1879 - The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passed over it, killing 75.
• 1895 - The Lumiere brothers have their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines -- this date is commonly considered the debut of the cinema.
• 1897 - The play Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, premieres in Paris.
• 1902 - The first indoor professional American football game is played in New York City at Madison Square Garden.
• 1908 - An earthquake rocks Messina, Sicily killing over 75,000.
• 1937 - The Irish Free State becomes the Republic of Ireland.
• 1945 - The United States Congress officially recognizes the Pledge of Allegiance
• 1950 - The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park.
• 1973 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn publishes Gulag Archipelago.
• 1981 - The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born (Norfolk, Virginia).
• 1991 - Nine are crushed while a crowd pushes their way into a basketball game at City College of New York.
• 1991 - Sonic the Hedgehog Game Gear version is released in Japan.
• 1995 - CompuServe sets a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups after being pressured by German prosecutors.
• 1998 - Claudia Benton of West University Place, Texas is murdered in her home by Angel Maturino Resendiz. This is Angel's third victim in his third incident.

• 1856 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (d. 1924)
• 1879 - Billy Mitchell, military aviation pioneer (d. 1936)
• 1882 - Arthur Eddington, astronomer and physicist (d. 1944)
• 1888 - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, film director (d. 1931)
• 1899 - Eugeniusz Bodo, famous Polish actor (killed in 1943)
• 1902 - Mortimer Adler, philosopher (d. 1902)
• 1903 - John von Neumann, mathematician (d. 1957)
• 1903 - Earl "Fatha" Hines, jazz musician (d. 1983)
• 1905 - Cliff Arquette, actor, comedian ("Charley Weaver") (d. 1974)
• 1908 - Lew Ayres, actor (d. 1996)
• 1922 - Stan Lee, comic book writer
• 1925 - Hildegard Knef, actress, singer and writer (d. 2002)
• 1929 - Owen Bieber, labor leader
• 1932 - Roy Hattersley, British politician
• 1932 - Manuel Puig, writer (d. 1990)
• 1933 - Nichelle Nichols, actress and singer
• 1934 - Maggie Smith, actress
• 1946 - Edgar Winter, musician
• 1949 - Jack Lovelock, New Zealand athlete
• 1953 - Richard Clayderman, pianist
• 1954 - Denzel Washington, actor
• 1969 - Linus Torvalds, programmer and initiator of Linux
• 1971 - Frank Sepe, bodybuilder and male model

• 1694 - Queen Mary II of England (b. 1662)
• 1918 - Olavo Bilac, poet (b. 1865)
• 1937 - Maurice Ravel, composer (b. 1875)
• 1938 - Florence Lawrence, Hollywood's first "star" (b. 1886)
• 1945 - Theodore Dreiser, author (b. 1871)
• 1947 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (b. 1869)
• 1952 - Fletcher Henderson, jazz musician (b. 1897)
• 1963 - Paul Hindemith, German composer (b. 1895)
• 1981 - Allan Dwan, pioneer film director (b. 1885)
• 1983 - William Demarest, actor
• 1983 - Jimmy Demaret, golf champion (b. 1910)
• 1983 - Dennis Wilson, musician ("The Beach Boys") (b. 1944)
• 1984 - Sam Peckinpah, film director (b. 1925)
• 1986 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian movie director (b. 1932)
• 1998 - Claudia Benton, Child Psychologist
• 1999 - Clayton Moore, actor (The Lone Ranger)
• 2001 - William X. Kienzle, novelist
• 2003 - Dinsdale Landen, actor (b. 1932)

• The fourth day of Christmas in Western Christianity.
• Massacre of the Saint Innocents Catholic, Anglican; in Mexico and Spain el Día de los Santos Inocentes is a day of practical jokes, in the same spirit as April Fool's Day.
• Proclamation Day (South Australian public holiday), for the foundation of the Australian state of South Australia