August 28 in History

Theodoric the Great crossed the Julian Alps into Italy in 489 AD with an Ostrogothic army and beat Odoacer — the man who had deposed the last Western Roman Emperor — at the Isonzo River. It wasn't a decisive blow yet. That took three more battles and a three-year siege of Ravenna. Theodoric eventually invited Odoacer to a peace dinner and killed him personally. He ruled Italy for the next thirty years, maintaining Roman administrative structures, appointing Roman senators, and presenting himself as the legitimate continuation of Roman civilization. He was, in modern terms, an occupying king who made himself look like a Roman emperor.

Fatimah's death in 632 AD ignited an immediate rift over succession that split Islam into Sunni and Shia branches. Her passing triggered decades of debate regarding her husband Ali's rightful claim to leadership, establishing a theological divide that defines Muslim communities today.

The combined Silla and Tang Dynasty fleet crushed the forces of Baekje and their Japanese (Yamato) allies at the naval Battle of Baekgang, destroying over 400 Yamato ships and ending Japan's first major military intervention on the Korean peninsula. The defeat kept Japan out of Korean affairs for nearly 900 years and allowed Silla to eventually unify the Korean kingdoms.

The Kaqchikel Maya, who had initially allied with Hernán Cortés' lieutenant Pedro de Alvarado against their Quiché rivals, turned against the Spanish when the demands for tribute and forced labor became unbearable. Their revolt launched a prolonged guerrilla resistance in the Guatemalan highlands that took the Spanish years to suppress — one of the longest indigenous resistance campaigns of the conquest era.

Christovão da Gama, son of Vasco da Gama, led 400 Portuguese musketeers into Ethiopia in 1541 to help the Christian kingdom fight an Adal Sultanate invasion backed by Ottoman forces. The Portuguese won several battles. Then Christovão was wounded, captured, and executed by the Adal commander Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi. His head was displayed. The Portuguese survivors regrouped with the Ethiopian army and eventually defeated and killed Ahmad ibn Ibrahim the following year. Christovão da Gama got the wrong end of the campaign that his side ultimately won.

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sighted the coast of Florida and went on to found St. Augustine — the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States, predating Jamestown by 42 years and Plymouth by 55. The settlement was strategically placed to protect Spain's treasure fleet route and to counter French Huguenot colonization attempts along the Atlantic coast.

The Battle of Newburn in August 1640 was a humiliation. King Charles I had tried to impose a new prayer book on Scotland, the Scots had raised an army in response, and his English forces were supposed to stop them at the River Tyne. The Scottish Covenanters forded the river before the English were properly positioned and routed them in less than two hours. The defeat forced Charles to summon Parliament to raise money for a new army. Parliament refused to cooperate. The confrontation that led to the English Civil War had begun. A skirmish at a river crossing started it.

The French Navy captures an entire British squadron at the Battle of Grand Port, securing the only major naval victory France ever achieved against Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. This rare triumph temporarily disrupted British control of the Indian Ocean trade routes and forced London to divert significant resources to retake the island of Mauritius.

The Crown signed the Slavery Abolition Act into law on August 28, 1833, outlawing slave ownership across the British Empire. This legislation freed over three million enslaved people, though it initially exempted certain territories and compensated owners rather than the formerly enslaved. The act fundamentally reshaped the empire's economy and social structure by ending legal chattel slavery in its dominions.