What happened on December 28 ?

300 - Theonas, Patriarch of Alexandria

1367 - Ashikaga Yoshiakira, Japanese shogun (b. 1330)

1446 - Antipope Clement VIII

1503 - Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence (b. 1471)

1558 - Hermann Finck, German composer (b. 1527)

1622 - Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva and saint (b. 1567)

1663 - Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Italian mathematician and physicist (b. 1618)

1671 - Johann Friedrich Gronovius, German classical scholar (b. 1611)

1694 - Queen Mary II of England (b. 1662)

1703 - Mustafa II, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1664)

1706 - Pierre Bayle, French philosopher (b. 1647)

1708 - Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, French botanist (b. 1656)

1715 - William Carstares, Scottish minister (b. 1649)

1734 - Robert Roy MacGregor, Scottish folk hero (b. 1671)

1736 - Antonio Caldara, Italian composer (b. 1670)

1795 - Eugenio Espejo, Ecuadorian scientist (b. 1747)

1829 - Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, French scientist (b. 1744)

1859 - Thomas Macaulay, British poet, historian, and politician (b. 1800)

1872 - James Van Ness, Mayor of San Francisco (1855-1856) (b. 1808)

1877 - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Russian poet (b. 1821)

1900 - Alexandre Alberto da Rocha de Serpa Pinto, Portuguese explorer (b. 1846)

1916 - Eduard Strauss, Austrian composer (b. 1835)

1918 - Olavo Bilac, Brazilian poet (b. 1865)

1919 - Johannes Rydberg, Swedish physicist (b. 1854)

1924 - Léon Bakst, Russian artist (b. 1866)

1937 - Maurice Ravel, French composer (b. 1875)

1938 - Florence Lawrence, American actress (b. 1886)

1945 - Theodore Dreiser, American author (b. 1871)

1947 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (b. 1869)

1949 - Jack Lovelock, New Zealand athlete (b. 1910)

1952 - Fletcher Henderson, American musician (b. 1897)

1963 - Paul Hindemith, German composer (b. 1895)

1967 - Katharine McCormick, American women's rights activist (b. 1875)

1976 - Katharine Byron, U.S. Congresswoman (b. 1903)

1981 - Allan Dwan, Canadian-born film director (b. 1885)

1983 - William Demarest, American actor (b. 1892)

1983 - Jimmy Demaret, American golfer (b. 1910)

1983 - Dennis Wilson, American musician (The Beach Boys) (b. 1944)

1984 - Sam Peckinpah, American film director (b. 1925)

1986 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian film director (b. 1932)

1989 - Hermann Oberth, German physicist (b. 1894)

1991 - Cassandra Harris, Australian actress (b. 1952)

1998 - Claudia Benton, Peruvian child psychologist (b. 1959)

1999 - Clayton Moore, American actor (b. 1914)

2001 - William X. Kienzle, American novelist (b. 1928)

2003 - Benjamin Hacker, U.S. admiral (b. 1935)

2004 - Jerry Orbach, American actor (b. 1935)

2004 - Susan Sontag, American writer and activist (b. 1933)