April 28

Events

1788 – Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.
1792 – France invades Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium), beginning the French Revolutionary War.
1862 – American Civil War: Admiral David Farragut captures New Orleans, Louisiana.
1920 – Azerbaijan is added to the Soviet Union.
1945 - Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are murdered by communist partisans.
1947 – Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia.
1952 – Occupied Japan: The United States occupation of Japan ends.
1970 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to fight communist sanctuaries in Cambodia.
1977 - The Red Army Faction trial ends, with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe found guilty of four counts of murder and more than 30 counts of attempted murder.
1978 – President of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, is overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels.
1994 – Former C.I.A. official Aldrich Ames pleads guilty to giving U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia.