Today in History, September 28th
On September 28, 1066, William of Normandy landed at Pevensey and began the Norman Conquest. Plus Yorktown and the Black Sox indictments.
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September 28 is best known for 1066, when William, duke of Normandy, landed at Pevensey and began the Norman Conquest of England. The date also saw the siege of Yorktown begin in 1781 and eight Chicago White Sox players indicted in the Black Sox scandal in 1920.
The big story: William of Normandy lands in England (1066)
England had two kings to spare in 1066 and was about to get a third. When the childless Edward the Confessor died in January, the crown went to Harold Godwinson, who became Harold II. Across the Channel, William, duke of Normandy, insisted Edward had promised the throne to him years earlier, a claim backed mainly by Norman writers. Harold’s first fight came from the north: on September 25 he beat and killed Norway’s Harald III and his own brother Tostig at Stamford Bridge. Three days later, on September 28, 1066, William came ashore at Pevensey on England’s south coast with about 7,000 men and cavalry. He took Pevensey and moved on to Hastings. Harold rushed south, and on October 14 the two armies met. Harold died in the battle, by legend from an arrow in the eye. On Christmas Day, William was crowned at Westminster Abbey as England’s first Norman king, and the language, law and look of England changed for good.
More events on September 28
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 48 B.C. | Roman general Pompey the Great was murdered after landing in Egypt, on the orders of King Ptolemy. |
| 351 | Roman emperor Constantius II defeated the usurper Magnentius at the Battle of Mursa. |
| 1542 | Spanish explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo reached San Diego Bay, the first European to set foot on what is now the U.S. West Coast. |
| 1781 | American and French forces under George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau began the siege of British troops at Yorktown, Virginia. |
| 1850 | Congress voted to ban flogging on U.S. naval and merchant ships. |
| 1918 | A Liberty Loan parade in Philadelphia set off a huge outbreak of the Spanish flu in the city. |
| 1920 | A Chicago grand jury indicted eight White Sox players for fixing the 1919 World Series. |
| 1941 | Ted Williams got six hits in a season-ending doubleheader in Philadelphia to finish at .406, the first .400 season in the majors since 1930. |
| 1965 | Fidel Castro announced that any Cuban who wanted to leave the island could go, setting off a wave of emigration. |
| 1994 | The car and passenger ferry Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea, killing 852 people. |
| 1995 | Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo II Accords at the White House, expanding Palestinian self-rule. |
| 2008 | SpaceX launched Falcon 1, the first liquid-fueled rocket from a private company to reach orbit. |
Born on September 28
- 1901: Ed Sullivan, television host of The Ed Sullivan Show, born in New York City.
- 1925: Seymour Cray, engineer and the leading designer of supercomputers, born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
- 1934: Brigitte Bardot, French film star of the 1950s and 1960s and later animal rights activist, born in Paris.
Sources
- William the Conqueror invades England, History.com
- This Day in History: September 28, History.com
- On This Day: September 28, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Ed Sullivan, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Seymour Cray, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Brigitte Bardot, Encyclopaedia Britannica
