1928 was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January-May

• January 6-7 - River Thames floods in London - 14 drowned
• January 17 - OGPU arrests Lev Trotsky in Moscow; he assumes a status of passive resistance and is exiled to Turkestan
• February - Kurume University (Japan) established
• February 11 - 1928 Winter Olympic Games open in St. Moritz, Switzerland
• February 12 - Heavy hails kill 11 in England
• February 25 - Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, DC becomes the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission.
• March 11 - Blizzard in England; In London temperature drops to 9 degrees Celsius
• March 12 - Malta becomes a British dominion
• March 12 - In California, the St. Francis Dam fails killing 400
• March 21 - Charles Lindbergh is presented the Congressional Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.
• April 12 - Bomb attack against the King of Italy in Milan - 17 bystanders dead
• April 22 - Earthquake destroys Corinth - 200.000 buildings destroyed
• May 15-17 - Christian X of Denmark visits Finland
• May 15 - Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, commenced operations
• May 15 - Release of the animated short Plane Crazy, featuring the first appearances of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
• May 23 - Bomb attack against Italian consulate in Buenos Aires - 22 dead, 41 injured
• May 24 - Airship Italia crashes on the North Pole; one of the occupants is Italian general Umberto Nobile
• May 30 - A rescue expedition leaves for the North Pole

June-September

• June 11 - Medical doctor's strike begins in Vienna
• June 14 - Students take over the medical wing of Rosario University in Argentina
• July 6 - The world's largest hailstone falls in Potter, Nebraska.
• July 12 - Mexican aviator Emilio Carranza dies in a solo plane crash in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey while returning from a goodwill flight to New York City.
• June 17 - Aviator Amelia Earhart starts her attempt to become the first woman to successfully pilot an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean (she succeeded the next day).
• June 20 - Shooting incident in Yugoslavian parliament - Punica Rasic shoots 3 opposition representatives and injures three others
• June 24 - Swedish aeroplane rescues part of Italian North Pole expedition, including Umberto Nobile. Soviet icebreaker Krasin saves the rest July 12
• July 16 Leon Toral assassinates Álvaro Obregón, president of Mexico
• July 25 - USA recalls its troops from China
• July 27 - Tich Freeman becomes only bowler ever to take 200 first-class wickets before end of July.
• August 16 - Murderer Carl Panzram is arrested in Washington, DC after killing about 20 people.
• August 25 - Ahmet Zogu proclaims himself King Zog I of Albania; he is crowned September 1
• August 28 - The Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in Paris - it was the first treaty which outlawed aggressive war.
• September 1 - Richard Byrd leaves New York for Arctic
• September 15 - Tich Freeman sets all-time record for number of wickets taken in an English cricket season.
• September 17 - A hurricane kills over 3,000 people in Florida.

October-December

• October 2 Saint Josemaria Escriva, under divine inspiration, founded Opus Dei
• October 7 - Haile Selassie crowned king (not yet emperor) of Abyssinia
• October 12 - An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston.
• November 4 - At Park Central Hotel in Manhattan, Arnold Rothstein, New York City's most notorious gambler, is shot to death over a poker game.
• November 6 - Swedes start a tradition of eating Gustavus Adolphus pastries to commemorate the king.
• November 6 - U.S. presidential election, 1928: Republican Herbert Hoover wins by a wide margin over Democrat Alfred E. Smith.
• December 3 - In Rio de Janeiro, a seaplane sunk near Cap Arcona with Alberto Santos-Dumont on board.
• December 5 - Police disperses Sicilian gangs' meeting in Cleveland
• December 31 - Bells of Big Ben first time in a radio

Unknown dates

• Charles King elected president of Liberia with 600.000 votes; the whole of country has only 15,000 voters.
• Building of the Maginot Line begins.
• Chaco war
• Coca Cola enters Europe through the Amsterdam Olympics.
• Eliot Ness begins to lead the prohibition unit in Chicago.
• The old Canaanite city of Ugarit is rediscovered.
• Turkey switches from the Arabic to the Latin-based modern Turkish alphabet.
• The right to vote extended to all women in the United Kingdom.
• Frederick Griffith conducts the Griffith experiment , indirectly proving existence of DNA.
• Motorola is founded.
• First (and last) Best Title Writing Academy Award given.
• The Episcopal Church ratifies a new revision of the Book of Common Prayer.
• W2XBS, RCA's first television station, is established in New York City.

Year in topic

• 1928 in aviation
• 1928 in film
  • Sunrise
• 1928 in literature
  • Strange Fugitive by Morley Callaghan
• 1928 in music
• 1928 in rail transport
• 1928 in science
• 1928 in sports
  • February 11 - 2nd Olympic Winter Games open in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
  • Summer Olympic Games in Amsterdam Netherlands
• 1928 in television
  • May 11 - The first regular schedule of TV programming is begun in the United States by the General Electric company. Programs are transmitted Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
  • July 12 - First televised tennis match.
  • August 22 - Alfred E. Smith accepts the Democratic presidential nomination, with WGY simulcasting the event on radio and Television. This was the first live broadcast and the first television news event.
  • September 11 - The first broadcast of a play on television, The Queen's Messenger (W2XAD).

Births

January

• January 5 - Walter Mondale, U.S. Senator, Democratic presidential nominee in 1984
• January 5 - Ali Bhutto, President and Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 1979)
• January 7 - William Peter Blatty, screenwriter
• January 8 - Sander Vanocur , journalist
• January 11 - David L. Wolper , producer
• January 16 - William Kennedy, author
• January 17 - Jean Barraqué, composer (d. 1973)
• January 17 - Vidal Sassoon, cosmetologist
• January 23 - Jeanne Moreau, actress
• January 24 - Desmond Morris, anthropologist, writer
• January 26 - Roger Vadim, film director (d. 2000)
• January 30 - Hal Prince, stage producer, director

February

• February 5 - Andrew Greeley, priest, novelist
• February 9 - Frank Frazetta, illustrator
• February 9 - Roger Mudd, journalist
• February 11 - Conrad Janis , actor
• February 11 - Archibald Forster , CEO (Esso, United Kingdom)
• February 11 - Gerry Alexander , West Indies cricket player
• February 11 - Raoul Cita , rocker
• February 23 - Vasili Lazarev, cosmonaut (d. 1990)
• February 26 - Fats Domino, musician
• February 26 - Anatoli Filipchenko, cosmonaut
• February 27 - Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel
• February 27 - Alfred Hrdlicka , sculptor and graphic artist

March-April

• March 3 - France Križanič , Slovene mathematician (d. 2002)
• March 4 - Alan Sillitoe, writer
• March 6 - Gabriel García Márquez, writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1982
• March 8 - Gerald Bull, engineer (d. 1990)
• March 10 - James Earl Ray, assassin (d. 1998)
• March 12 - Edward Albee, U.S. dramatist
• March 16 - Christa Ludwig, German mezzo-soprano
• March 19 - Hans Küng, theologian
• March 19 - Patrick McGoohan, actor
• March 20 - Fred Rogers, children's television host (d. 2003)
• March 24 - Byron Janis, American pianist
• March 25 - Jim Lovell, astronaut
• March 28 - Zbigniew Brzezinski, United States National Security Advisor
• March 31 - Gordie Howe, ice hockey player
• March 31 - Lefty Frizzell, country music performer
• April 1 - Jane Powell, dancer, actress, singer
• April 2 - Serge Gainsbourg, singer (d. 1991)
• April 4 - Maya Angelou, poet, novelist
• April 6 - James D. Watson, geneticist
• April 7 - James Garner, actor
• April 7 - Alan J. Pakula, producer, director (d. 1998)
• April 9 - Tom Lehrer, satirical songwriter
• April 12 - Jean-François Paillard, French conductor

May-September

• May 4 - Hosni Mubarak, president of Egypt
• May 8 - Theodore Sorenson, political operative, writer
• May 9 - Colin Chapman, engineer, founder of Lotus Cars (d. 1982)
• May 9 - Pancho Gonzalez, tennis player (d. 1995)
• May 9 - Barbara Ann Scott, figure skater
• May 12 - Burt Bacharach, composer
• May 16 - Billy Martin, baseball player, coach (d. 1989)
• May 18 - Pernell Roberts, actor
• May 23 - Nigel Davenport , actor
• May 23 - Rosemary Clooney, singer, actress (d. 2002)
• May 26 - Jack Kevorkian, assisted suicide advocate
• June 1 - Georgi Dobrovolski, cosmonaut
• June 19 - Nancy Marchand, actress (The Sopranos) (d. 2000)
• July 5 - Warren Oates, Character actor (d. 1982)
• July 11 - Bobo Olson, American world champion boxer (d. 2002)
• July 16 - Robert Sheckley, science fiction writer
• July 26 - Stanley Kubrick, American film director (d. 1999)
• July 26 - Bernice Rubens, British novelist (d. 2004)
• August 6 - Andy Warhol, American artist (d. 1987)
• August 10 - Eddie Fisher, American singer
• August 12 - Bob Buhl, Major League Baseball player (d. 2001)
• August 15 - Nicolas Roeg, film director
• August 18 - Marge Schott, former owner of MLB's Cincinnati Reds (d. 2004)
• September 14 - The Rt Hon Sir Angus Ogilvy KCVO, husband of HRH Princess Alexandra of Kent (d. 2004)
• September 15 - Julian Cannonball Adderley, American saxophonist
• September 19 - Adam West, actor
• September 22 - James Lawson, civil rights activist, minister

October-December

• October 1 - George Peppard, actor
• October 8 - Bill Maynard, actor
• October 9 - Einojuhani Rautavaara, composer
• November 3 - Osamu Tezuka Japanese manga artist
• November 3 - George Yardley NBA Hall of famer. (d. 2004)
• November 10 - Ennio Morricone, film music composer
• December 7 - Noam Chomsky, linguist and political dissident
• December 15 - Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Austrian artist
• December 16 - Philip K. Dick, American author

Unknown date

• Sultan Azlan Muhibbudin Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Yusuff Izzudin Shah Ghafarullahu-lahu, Sultan of Perak and 9th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia

Deaths

• January 1 - Loie Fuller, dancer
• January 6 - Alvin Kraenzlein, American athlete
• January 11 - Thomas Hardy, English writer (b. 1840)
• January 29 - Douglas Haig, British soldier
• February 1 - Hughie Jennings, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1869)
• February 4- Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
• February 15 - Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• February 16 - Eddie Foy, vaudevillian
• June 4 - Chang Tso-lin, Chinese warlord
• August 12 - Leos Janacek, Czech composer
• August 30 - Wilhelm Wien, physicist (b. 1864)
• October 22 - Andrew Fisher, fifth Prime Minister of Australia
• December 1 - José Eustasio Rivera, Colombian writer (b. 1888)
• Robert Abbe, American surgeon

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Owen Willans Richardson
• Chemistry - Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus
• Medicine - Charles Jules Henri Nicolle
• Literature - Sigrid Undset
• Peace - Not awarded.