Today's entries are mainly political and scientific. Way back, on 28 August 1619, Ferdinand II was elected emperor of the Imperium Romanum Sacrum, the Holy Roman Empire.
More than two centuries later, the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 enacted by the British Parliament outlawed slavery in the British Empire, thus liberating around 700 000 people.
And talking about empires and spheres of influence, on 28 August 1867 the United States took possession of the tiny Midway Atoll (only slightly more than 6 km2 ) in the North Pacific Ocean. A century later the Battle of Midway (1942) became an important naval milestone of World War II when the US Navy defeated a Japanese attack.
Another empire collapsed on 28 August 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party of the then Soviet Union. On the same day, the Ukraine declared its independence from the USSR.
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| Here, courtesy of the British Library, is the original score of Herschel's Symphony No 15 |
On this date in 1789 William Herschel, the German-born British astronomer who was also a prolific composer, discovered one of my favourite moons in the Solar System - Saturn's beautiful Enceladus. Herchel is, of course, perhaps best known as the astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus in 1781. Currently we are learning more about Enceladus and other moons in the Saturn system via the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Cassini mission.
The first issue of Scientific American magazine was published on 28 August 1845. It is now the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the US with
