July 28

Today in History
• 1586 - Sir Thomas Harriot introduces potatoes to Europe on return to England
• 1717 - Prussian King Frederik Willhelm I orders compulsory education for 5-12 year olds
• 1741 - Captain Vitus Bering discovers Mount St Elias, Alaska
• 1794 - Revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre and 22 other leaders guillotined
• 1800 - Thames River Police established by act of British parliament, Marine Police
• 1851 - Total solar eclipse captured on a daguerreotype photograph
• 1858 - Nadar takes 1st airborne photo, in a balloon
• 1868 - 14th Amendment ratified, grants citizenship to ex-slaves


Holidays - Traditional and Obscure
• Baptism Day of Kyivan Rus
• Buffalo Soldiers Day
• Day of Cantabria Institutions
• H.M. King's Birthday
• National Soccer Day
• Peru Independence Day
• St. Olav’s Eve in Faroe Islands
• Tabaski Day

Birthdays
• 1165 - Ibn al-'Arabi, Muslim mystic and philosopher (The Meccan Revelations)
• 1514 - Maximilian of Burgundy, viceroy of Holland
• 1746 - Thomas Heyward, signed US Declaration of Independence
• 1778 - Charles Stewart, Rear Admiral
• 1857 - Balington Booth, founder, Volunteers of America
• 1870 - Henri Jaspar, premier of Belgium, 1927-31
• 1872 - Albert P Sarraut, French Governor-General of Indo-China
• 1881 - John Gresham Machen, formed Orthodox Presbyterian Church