28 August on the globe: what happened in the world on this day, and who was born

The Roman general Orestes forces western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos to flee his capital city, Ravenna.

Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, defeats Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy.

Fatimah, daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, dies, with her cause of death being a controversial topic among the Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims.

Silla–Tang armies crush the Baekje restoration attempt and force Yamato Japan to withdraw from Korea in the Battle of Baekgang.

Third Crusade: The Crusaders begin the Siege of Acre under Guy of Lusignan.

The second treaty of Birgham is ratified in which Margaret, Maid of Norway and granddaughter of king Alexander III of Scotland is to marry the English prince Edward of Caernarfon.

Ottoman wars in Europe: The Ottoman Turks occupy Belgrade.

The Kaqchikel Maya rebel against their former Spanish allies during the Spanish conquest of Guatemala.

Turkish–Portuguese War: Battle of Wofla: The Portuguese are scattered, their leader Christovão da Gama is captured and later executed.

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sights land near St. Augustine, Florida and founds the oldest continuously occupied European-established city in the continental United States.

Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.

Election of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor.

Second Bishop's War: King Charles I's English army loses to a Scottish Covenanter force at the Battle of Newburn.

Second English Civil War: The Siege of Colchester ends when Royalist Forces surrender to the Parliamentary Forces after eleven weeks.

Meidingnu Pamheiba is crowned King of Manipur.

William Herschel discovers a new moon of Saturn: Enceladus.

Napoleonic Wars: The French Navy accepts the surrender of a British Royal Navy fleet at the Battle of Grand Port.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam's role in U.S. railroads.

The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 receives royal assent, making the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal in the British Empire with exceptions.

The first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.

Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire: After a month-long siege, Venice, which had declared itself independent as the Republic of San Marco, surrenders to Austria.

Richard Wagner's Lohengrin premieres at the Staatskapelle Weimar.

The Carrington event is the strongest geomagnetic storm on record to strike the Earth. Electrical telegraph service is widely disrupted.

American Civil War: Union forces attack Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in the Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries which lasts for two days.

American Civil War: The Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Second Manassas, begins in Virginia. The battle ends on August 30 with another Union defeat.

The United States takes possession of the (at this point unoccupied) Midway Atoll.

Anglo-Zulu War: Cetshwayo, last king of the Zulus, is captured by the British.

The strongest storm in Finnish history kills at least three people.

Caleb Bradham's beverage "Brad's Drink" is renamed "Pepsi-Cola".

Silliman University is founded in the Philippines. It is the first American private school in the country.

A group of mid-level Greek Army officers launches the Goudi coup, seeking wide-ranging reforms.

The 1909 Monterrey hurricane dissipated; one of the deadliest Atlantic tropical cyclones on record, it killed an estimated 4,000 people throughout Mexico.

Queen Wilhelmina opens the Peace Palace in The Hague.

World War I: The Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.

A confrontation at Blargies prison camp in France led to a charge of mutiny for New Zealand private John Braithwaite, for which he was later executed.

World War I: Germany declares war on Romania.

World War I: Italy declares war on Germany.

Ten suffragists, members of the Silent Sentinels, are arrested while picketing the White House in favor of women's suffrage in the United States.

Russian Civil War: The Red Army dissolves the Makhnovshchina after driving the Revolutionary Insurgent Army out of Ukraine.

The Georgian opposition stages the August Uprising against the Soviet Union.

Nazi Germany begins its mass arrests of Jehovah's Witnesses, who are interned in concentration camps.

Toyota Motors becomes an independent company.

Denmark in World War II: German authorities demand that Danish authorities crack down on acts of resistance. The next day, martial law is imposed on Denmark.

World War II: Marseille and Toulon are liberated.

The Workers' Party of North Korea, predecessor of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, is founded at a congress held in Pyongyang, North Korea.

American tennis player Althea Gibson became the first African-American woman to compete at the U.S. National Championships.

Black teenager Emmett Till is lynched in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman, galvanizing the nascent civil rights movement.

U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond begins a filibuster to prevent the United States Senate from voting on the Civil Rights Act of 1957; he stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later. This would remain the longest speech ever conducted by a single Senator until Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours and five minutes, beginning on March 31, 2025.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech.

The Philadelphia race riot begins.

Police and protesters clash during 1968 Democratic National Convention protests as protesters chant "The whole world is watching".

Norrmalmstorg robbery: Stockholm police secure the surrenders of hostage-takers Jan-Erik Olsson and Clark Olofsson, defusing the Norrmalmstorg hostage crisis. The behaviours of the hostages later give rise to the term Stockholm syndrome.

Construction began on the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, the tallest building in North Korea.

Ramstein air show disaster: Three aircraft of the Frecce Tricolori demonstration team collide and the wreckage falls into the crowd. Seventy are killed and 346 seriously injured.

An F5 tornado strikes the Illinois cities of Plainfield and Joliet, killing 29 people.

Gulf War: Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province.

A Tajikistan Airlines Yakovlev Yak-40 crashes during takeoff from Khorog Airport in Tajikistan, killing 82.

NASA's Galileo probe performs a flyby of the asteroid 243 Ida. Astronomers later discover a moon, the first known asteroid moon, in pictures from the flyby and name it Dactyl.

Singaporean presidential election: Former Deputy Prime Minister Ong Teng Cheong is elected President of Singapore. Although it is the first presidential election to be determined by popular vote, the allowed candidates consist only of Ong and a reluctant whom the government had asked to run to confer upon the election the semblance of an opposition.

The autonomous Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia in Bosnia and Herzegovina is transformed into the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia.

Chicago Seven defendant David Dellinger, antiwar activist Bradford Lyttle, Civil Rights Movement historian Randy Kryn, and eight others are arrested by the Federal Protective Service while protesting in a demonstration at the Kluczynski Federal Building in downtown Chicago during that year's Democratic National Convention.

Pakistan's National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the "Qur'an and Sunnah" the "supreme law" but the bill is defeated in the Senate.

Second Congo War: Loyalist troops backed by Angolan and Zimbabwean forces repulse the RCD and Rwandan offensive on Kinshasa.

The Russian space mission Soyuz TM-29 reaches completion, ending nearly 10 years of continuous occupation on the space station Mir as it approaches the end of its life.

In "one of the most complicated and bizarre crimes in the annals of the FBI", Brian Wells dies after becoming involved in a complex plot involving a bank robbery, a scavenger hunt, and a homemade explosive device.

NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery launches on STS-128.

The first experimental mission of ISRO's Scramjet Engine towards the realisation of an Air Breathing Propulsion System is successfully conducted from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota.

China–India border standoff: China and India both pull their troops out of Doklam, putting an end to a two-month-long stalemate over China's construction of a road in disputed territory.

The second phase of the Thomson-East Coast MRT line was opened for service.

Phoenix shooting: A man opens fire on pedestrians outside of a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, resulting in the deaths of three people, including the perpetrator.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German novelist, poet, playwright, and diplomat (died 1832)

Shania Twain, Grammy Award-winning Canadian Country Singer-Songwriter

Ivo Josipović, Croatian lawyer, jurist, and politician, 3rd President of Croatia

David Fincher, American director and producer

César Azpilicueta, Spanish footballer

Paul Martin, Canadian lawyer and politician, 21st Prime Minister of Canada

Ai Weiwei, Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist

Jack Kirby, Comic Book Artist and Writer (died 1994)

Valtteri Bottas, Finnish race car driver

Thiago Motta, Brazilian-Italian footballer

Bojan Krkić, Spanish footballer

C. Wright Mills American sociologist and author (died 1962)

Godfrey Hounsfield, English biophysicist and engineer Nobel Prize laureate (died 2004)

Andrei Platonov, Russian author and poet (died 1951)

George Whipple, American physician and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1976)

Tjalling Koopmans, Dutch-American mathematician and economist Nobel Prize laureate (died 1985)

Ben Gazzara, American actor (died 2012)

Charles Boyer, French-American actor, singer, and producer (died 1978)

Edward Burne-Jones, English artist of the Pre-Raphaelite movement (died 1898)

Donald O'Connor, American actor, singer, and dancer (died 2003)

Weston McKennie, American soccer player

Lidia Gueiler Tejada, the first female President of Bolivia (died 2011)

Luis Guzmán, Puerto Rican actor

Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Holy Roman Empress (died 1750)

Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish author (died 1873)

Jack Vance, American author (died 2013)

Ons Jabeur, Tunisian tennis player

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, English courtier and politician (died 1628)

Umberto Giordano, Italian composer and academic (died 1948)

Satoshi Tajiri, Japanese video game developer; created Pokémon

Antoine Augustin Cournot, French mathematician and philosopher (died 1877)

Quvenzhané Wallis, American actress

Taichang, emperor of China (died 1620)

Vladimir Shukhov, Russian architect and engineer, designed the Adziogol Lighthouse (died 1939)

Leon Theremin, Russian-Soviet electronic musical instruments inventor (died 1993)

Bruno Bettelheim, Austrian-American psychologist and author (died 1990)

Fernando Fernán Gómez, Spanish actor, director, and playwright (died 2007)

Surayud Chulanont, Thai general and politician, 24th Prime Minister of Thailand

Andreja Pejić, Bosnian model

Elizabeth Ann Seton, American nun and saint, co-founded the Sisters of Charity Federation in the Vincentian-Setonian Tradition (died 1821)

Emlyn Hughes, English footballer (died 2004)

Karl Böhm, Austrian conductor and director (died 1981)

John Betjeman, English poet and academic (died 1984)

Robertson Davies, Canadian journalist, author, and playwright (died 1995)

Janet Frame, New Zealand novelist Who Explored Madness (died 2004)

Marcello Gandini, Italian automotive designer (died 2024)

Kaj Leo Johannesen, Faroese footballer and politician, 12th Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands

Joseph Luns, Dutch politician and diplomat, 5th Secretary General of NATO (died 2002)

Carsten Jancker, German footballer and manager

Kjetil Jansrud, Norwegian skier

William Cohen, American lawyer and politician, 20th United States Secretary of Defense

Go-Reizei, emperor of Japan (died 1068)

Francis von Hohenstein, duke of Teck (died 1900)

Louis Le Prince, French artist and original inventor of the motion picture camera (disappeared 1890)

Brian Thompson, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter

Jeff Green, American basketball player

Roger Pingeon, French cyclist (died 2017)

Francisco de Sá de Miranda, Portuguese poet (died 1558)

Rita Dove, American poet and essayist

Bismack Biyombo, Congolese basketball player