April 28 in History ●
1180 — Philip II, 14, king of France from September 18 1180 to July 14 1223, marries his first of three wives, Isabella of Hainault, 10. Their son, the future Louis VIII, is born on 5 September 1187. Isabella dies on March 15 1190 from complications in childbirth (her twin sons also die), aged 19.
1865 —“L’Africaine” (The African Woman), the French opera of German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer (who died on May 2 1864), premieres in Paris.
1869 — Chinese and Irish labourers working for Central Pacific Railroad on the US’s first transcontinental railroad (Pacific Railroad) lay a record 16.111km of track in one day.
1910 — Frenchman Louis Paulhan wins the London to Manchester air race, the first longdistance aeroplane race in England.
1945 — Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini,
61, and his mistress Clara Petacci, 33, are executed in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement.
1949 — Former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, 61, is assassinated in an ambush while en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband, President Manuel Luis Quezon (who died on August 1 1944), in his hometown of Baler. Her daughter and 10 others are also killed. 1952 — The Treaty of San Francisco, signed by 49 nations on September 8 1951, comes into effect, restoring Japanese sovereignty and ending its state of war with most of the Allies of WW2. 1952 — The Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (Treaty of Taipei) is signed in Taipei, Taiwan, between Japan and the Republic of China to formally end the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). 1977 — Red Army Faction (aka the BaaderMeinhof Group) trial: Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe are found guilty on four counts of murder and more than 30 of attempted murder. They are sentence to life in prison and commit suicide in their cells on
October 18 — Baader, 34, and Raspe, 33, shoot themselves and Ensslin, 37, hangs herself.
1996 — A gunman, Martin Bryant, 28, opens fire at the Broad Arrow Cafe and randomly across Port Arthur, a tourist town in Tasmania, killing 35 people (aged between 3 and 72) and wounding 23 others. He is serving 35 life sentences plus 1,652 years at Risdon Prison in Hobart for the deadliest massacre in modern Australian history.