This is a list of selected January 28 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error in content currently on the Main Page, see Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If a listed event is inaccurate, please first seek consensus and update the corresponding article before making changes here.
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Staging area
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 661 – Ali, the fourth Islamic caliph, was assassinated, effectively ending the Rashidun Caliphate. | Article unsure of date |
| 1077 – Pope Gregory VII lifted the excommunication of Henry IV after the Holy Roman Emperor made his trek from Speyer to Canossa Castle to beg the pope for forgiveness for his actions in the Investiture Controversy. | refimprove |
| 1142 – Despite having saved the southern Song dynasty from attempts by the northern Jin dynasty to conquer it, Chinese general Yue Fei was executed by the Song government. | "Lead too short" yellow banner |
| 1573 – The Warsaw Confederation was signed, sanctioning religious freedom in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. | refimprove section |
| 1724 – The Russian Academy of Sciences, the national academy of Russia, was established. | refimprove section, external links |
| 1813 – English author Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice was published, using material from an unpublished manuscript originally written between 1796 and 1797. | Too much uncited |
| 1846 – The British led by Sir Harry Smith defeated the Sikh Khalsa Army led by Ranjodh Singh Majithia at the Battle of Aliwal, sometimes regarded as the turning point of the First Anglo-Sikh War. | needs more footnotes |
| 1855 – A train on the Panama Railway made the world's first transcontinental crossing by rail, a 48-mile (77 km) trip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific across the Isthmus of Panama. | multiple issues |
| 1871 – French forces surrendered at the Siege of Paris, leading to the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the establishment of the German Empire. | refimprove section |
| 1896 – Cited for travelling at 8 miles per hour (13 km/h), Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, England, became the first person ever convicted of exceeding the speed limit, and was fined one shilling. | globalize |
| 1932 – The January 28 incident, a short war fought in and around Shanghai between the armies of the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan, began. | refimprove section |
| 1977 – A deadly blizzard hit upstate New York and Southern Ontario, creating snowdrifts of up to 30 ft (9 m) in affected areas. | refimprove section |
| 1982 – After having been kidnapped by the Italian Red Brigade 42 days earlier, General James L. Dozier of the United States Army was freed by the anti-terrorist force NOCS. | refimprove section |
| 2006 – The roof of one of the buildings at the Katowice International Fair in Katowice, Poland, collapsed due to the weight of snow, killing 65 visitors. | needs more footnotes |
| Yazid II |d|724| | date not known for certain; see |
| Johannes Hevelius |bd|1611; 1687| | Too much uncited |
| Kathleen Lonsdale |b|1903 | referencing |
| Alan Alda |b|1936| | "uncited section" orange banner |
Eligible
- 1069 – Robert de Comines, Earl of Northumbria, was killed in Durham, causing William the Conqueror to embark on a campaign to subjugate northern England.
- 1393 – King Charles VI of France (pictured) was nearly killed when several other dancers' costumes caught fire during a masquerade ball in Paris.
- 1547 – Nine-year-old Edward VI, the first English monarch to be raised as a Protestant, became king.
- 1568 – Delegates of the Three Nations of Transylvania adopted the Edict of Torda, allowing local communities to elect their preachers freely, in an unprecedented act of religious tolerance.
- 1671 – Anglo-Spanish War: In pursuit of retreating Spanish troops, English soldiers sacked the city of Panama.
- 1754 – The word serendipity, derived from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, was coined by Horace Walpole (pictured) in a letter to a friend.
- 1916 – The province of Manitoba passed a law that first granted some Canadian women the right to vote.
- 1922 – The largest recorded snowstorm in the history of Washington, D.C., collapsed the Knickerbocker Theatre (damage pictured), killing 98 people.
- 1933 – Choudhry Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet in which he called for the creation of a Muslim state in north-western India that he termed "Pakstan".
- 1941 – World War II: About three hours after Thai bombers raided Sisophon, a ceasefire paused hostilities in the Franco-Thai War.
- 1964 – Three U.S. Air Force pilots aboard an unarmed T-39 Sabreliner were killed when the aircraft was shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, by a Soviet MiG-19.
- 1984 – Tropical Storm Domoina made landfall in southern Mozambique, causing some of the most severe flooding recorded in the region.
- Born/died: | Joan II of Navarre |b|1312|Paul Luther |b|1533| Agnes Sampson |d|1591| Gregor Werner |b|1693| William H. Prescott |d|1859| Monty Noble |b|1873| Colette |b|1873| Jasraj |b|1930| W. B. Yeats |d|1939| Paul Henderson |b|1943| Robert Wyatt |b|1945| Reynaldo Hahn |d|1947| Eddie Buczynski |b|1947| Bobbi Campbell |b|1952| Nick Carter |b|1980| Bruno Massot |b|1989| Helen Sawyer Hogg |d|1993| Astrid Lindgren |d|2002| Yelena Romanova |d|2007| Cicely Tyson |d|2021|
Explosion of Challenger
- 1521 – Charles V and the estates of the Holy Roman Empire met at the Diet of Worms to discuss Martin Luther and the effects of the Protestant Reformation.
- 1958 – The Lego Group, a Danish toy company, filed a patent in Denmark for the design of Lego bricks.
- 1961 – In Gitarama, Rwanda, local and other government officials initiated a coup to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic.
- 1981 – U.S. president Ronald Reagan lifted price controls from petroleum products, contributing to the 1980s oil glut.
- 1986 – The Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds into its tenth mission (video featured), killing all seven crew members.
- George S. Boutwell (b. 1818)
- Howard Wing (b. 1916)
- Roza Shanina (d. 1945)
- Elijah Wood (b. 1981)
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