28 July

Fabre d’Églantine
28 July 1750 – 5 April 1794
He was involved with the development of the French Revolutionary Calendar. This was totally different from the conventional calendar: there were ten months in the year, each month had three weeks and each week had ten days. Everyone hated it and it was abolished in 1805. » more

Ignaz Bösendorfer
28 July 1796 – 14 April 1859
Austrian musician and piano maker. Established the Bösendorfer firm in 1828. » more

Beatrix Potter
28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943
English, born in London. She was a children’s book author and illustrator – remembered for the book ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’. » more

Charles Dillon Perrine
28 July 1867 – 21 June 1951
Argentine astronomer who discovered two of Jupiter’s moons (Himalia and Elara). » more

Marcel Duchamp
28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968
French Dadaist/Surrealist artist. Paintings can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art & Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; TATE Modern, London. » more

Earl Tupper
28 July 1907 – 5 October 1983
Invented Tupperware, the airtight plastic food containers. He founded the Tupperware Plastics Company in 1938. » more

Malcolm Lowry
28 July 1909 – 26 June 1957
English author, wrote the novel ‘Under the Volcano’. » more

Jacques Piccard
28 July 1922
Invented a deep diving research submarine (bathyscaphe) capable of descending to nearly 11,000 metres (nearly 36,000 feet). » more

Garry Sobers
28 July 1936
Cricketer from Barbados. Considered the best ‘all rounder’ that has been involved in the game of Cricket. » more

Riccardo Muti
28 July 1941
Celebrated music director of La Scala opera house, Milan. » more

Today’s National Day
28 July – Peru

Today’s Quote
It’s so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn’t it?
 … L. M. Montgomery (1874 – 1942), from ‘Anne of Green Gables’.

Today’s No. 1 Hit
1993 – Can’t Help Falling in Love by UB40

Today’s events
28 July 1586 – The English first taste the Potato, reputedly introduced by Sir Thomas Harriot.
28 July 1609 – Bermuda settled by ship-wrecked immigrants who were heading to Virginia, America.
28 July 1851 – First photograph of a solar eclipse, taken using the Daguerreotype photography process.
28 July 1858 – The first arial photograph taken from a balloon over Paris by French photographer, Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon).
28 July 1959 – Post Codes introduced to facilitate mail sorting in England.