28 June 1389

Ottoman Sultan Murad I defeats Prince Lazar of Serbia at the battle of Kosovo. Both leaders are killed along with much of the Serbian nobility. Serbia will become a vassal state within the Ottoman empire.

Advertisement

28 June 1461

Three months after routing Henry VI's Lancastrians at the battle of Towton, Yorkist Edward IV was crowned king in Westminster.


28 June 1712

Birth in Geneva of philosopher and composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His mother died a few days after his birth. Emile, his treatise on the philosophy of education, and political writings like his Discourse on Equality and The Social Contract, made Rousseau one of the most influential writers of the 18th-century Enlightenment, and his ideas were espoused by the leaders of the French revolution. Sixteen years after his sudden death at Ermenonville, Oise, in July 1778 his remains were transferred to the Pantheon in Paris.


28 June 1838

Four hundred thousand people lined London’s streets to watch the coronation procession of Queen Victoria who was crowned that day in Westminster Abbey.


28 June 1846

Having devised instruments such as the saxhorn and the saxotromba, Belgian inventor Adolphe Sax hits the jackpot with his patent for a single-reed instrument made of brass. Once again he names it after himself – the saxophone.

Advertisement

28 June 1880

Australian bushranger Edward ‘Ned’ Kelly was captured after a shoot-out with police at Glenrowen in Victoria. His three associates were killed in the incident and Kelly was hanged in Melbourne Gaol that November.

Browse more On this day in history
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement