June 28 in History

Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb nationalist, shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The assassination was the second attempt that day; an earlier bomb had missed the Archduke's car and injured bystanders. Princip happened to be standing on the corner where the Archduke's driver took a wrong turn. He fired two shots from five feet away. Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia on July 23; Serbia's response was conciliatory but insufficient. Austria declared war on July 28. Russia mobilized to support Serbia. Germany declared war on Russia on August 1 and on France on August 3. Britain entered on August 4 when Germany invaded Belgium. Within six weeks of two gunshots, all of Europe was at war. The resulting conflict killed 20 million people and destroyed four empires.

North Korean troops captured Seoul on June 28, 1950, just three days after the invasion began, as South Korean forces collapsed under the assault of 90,000 North Korean troops and 150 Soviet-supplied T-34 tanks. President Syngman Rhee's government fled south. South Korean army engineers prematurely demolished the Hangang Bridge while it was packed with refugees and retreating soldiers, killing an estimated 500-800 people and stranding much of the army north of the river. The rapid capture of Seoul shocked Washington and the United Nations into action. General MacArthur's Inchon landing on September 15 cut North Korean supply lines, and Seoul was recaptured on September 28. It would change hands four times during the war. Seoul's population dropped from 1.5 million to 300,000 during the conflict.

Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's right ear during the third round of their WBA Heavyweight Championship rematch on June 28, 1997, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. After the initial bite removed a small piece of Holyfield's ear, referee Mills Lane deducted two points and allowed the fight to continue. Tyson then bit Holyfield's left ear in a subsequent clinch. Lane disqualified Tyson, triggering a near-riot in the arena. The Nevada State Athletic Commission fined Tyson $3 million, the maximum allowable, and revoked his boxing license for one year. Tyson claimed Holyfield had been headbutting him throughout both fights and that he "just snapped." The incident became one of the most infamous moments in sports history and permanently damaged Tyson's reputation. His boxing license was eventually reinstated in 1998.

Oda Nobunaga deployed approximately 3,000 ashigaru armed with arquebuses behind wooden palisades at the Battle of Nagashino on June 29, 1575, destroying the Takeda cavalry that had been the most feared military force in Japan. Nobunaga organized his gunners into rotating volleys, allowing continuous fire while each line reloaded. Takeda Katsuyori's mounted samurai charged repeatedly but could not break through the concentrated firepower. Over 10,000 Takeda soldiers were killed, including many of their finest generals. The battle demonstrated that massed firearms had permanently changed Japanese warfare, making the heavily armored mounted samurai charge obsolete. Nagashino accelerated Nobunaga's campaign to unify Japan under a single military government and is sometimes compared to the European transition from medieval to modern warfare.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles on June 28, 1919, formally ending World War I. The treaty held Germany solely responsible for the war (Article 231, the "war guilt" clause), stripped it of 13% of its territory and 10% of its population, limited its army to 100,000 men, prohibited tanks and an air force, and imposed reparations eventually set at 132 billion gold marks (roughly $400 billion today). The treaty also created the League of Nations, which the US Senate refused to join. John Maynard Keynes warned in "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" that the punitive terms would impoverish Germany and breed resentment. He was right: the reparations contributed to hyperinflation, economic collapse, and the political extremism that brought Hitler to power 14 years later.

He was five feet four and weighed about a hundred pounds. James Madison stood up in the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and out-argued, out-prepared, and out-maneuvered every larger man in the room to produce a document that has governed the United States for 235 years. He wrote the Bill of Rights afterward, partly to get the Constitution ratified. He co-wrote the Federalist Papers with Hamilton and Jay — 85 essays produced in eight months explaining why the Constitution would work. He died in June 1836, the last surviving member of the Constitutional Convention, the country that document created still intact.

Ottoman forces under Sultan Murad I defeated a Serbian-led coalition under Prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic at the Battle of Kosovo on June 28, 1389 (June 15 in the Julian calendar). Both leaders were killed: Lazar was captured and beheaded, and Murad was assassinated in his tent by a Serbian knight, Milos Obilic, who pretended to surrender. The battle's military outcome was ambiguous (both armies suffered devastating losses), but its political consequences were clear: Serbia gradually fell under Ottoman control over the next 70 years. The battle became the foundational myth of Serbian national identity, commemorated in epic poetry and folk songs. Vidovdan (St. Vitus' Day, June 28) became Serbia's most sacred national holiday. The date's significance partly explains why Gavrilo Princip chose June 28, 1914, to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.