On This Day - March 28th

Featured Event:

Constantinople renamed Istanbul (1930) 🇹🇷

Built as Byzantium about 657 bce, then renamed Constantinople in the 4th century ce after Constantine the Great made the city his capital, the Turkish city of Istanbul officially received its present name on this day in 1930.

Other Events:

1939: Spanish Civil War ends, Madrid falls to the Nationalists headed by Francisco Franco 🏳️

1972: Wilt Chamberlain plays his last pro basketball game 🏀

1979: At 4:00 am an automatic valve mistakenly closed at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, culminating in radioactive leakage. ☢️

1989: The Louvre Pyramid designed by I. M. Pei is inaugurated by French President François Mitterrand in Paris 🇫🇷

Holidays:

Serfs Emancipation Day 🇨🇳 (Tibet)

Teacher's Day 🇨🇿🇸🇰

Featured Birthdays:

1936: Mario Vargas Llosa 🇵🇪 (Poet)

1968: Lucy Lawless 🇳🇿 (Actress)

1970: Vince Vaughn 🇺🇸 (Actor)

1986: Lady Gaga 🇺🇸 (Singer)

Featured Deaths:

1584: Ivan the Terrible 🇷🇺 (Tsar)

1941: Virginia Woolf 🇬🇧 (Writer)

1969: Dwight D. Eisenhower 🇺🇸 (34th President)