28 th June

1491 Henry VIII of England was born.

1902 Richard Rodgers was born. (See July 12th entry.)

1914 Gavrilo Princip assassinated Austria’s Archduke Francis Ferdinand.

1919 The Treaty of Versailles was signed. (See March 19th entry.)

1976 Terrorists hijacked a passenger jet to Entebbe, Uganda. (See July 4th entry.)

Today is Richard Rodgers’ birthday. born in New York City in 1902, he started out writing songs for amateur boys’ club shows. His music quickly matured to familiar, yet haunting, melodies that made him a giant in the theatrical world. The music “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” and “My Funny Valentine” soon gave way to the scores for groundbreaking musicals like Oklahoma, South Pacific, The King and I, and Flower Drum Song which were written with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein III.

How many of us know the name of Gavrilo Princip. It is one of history’s quirks that some of the people who kindled epic flames are so little recognized. Gavrilo Princip was a Serbian revolutionary who fought for his nation’s freedom from Austro - Hungarian rule. We should remember his name because today is the anniversary of an incident that triggered the First World War. On this day, in 1914, Princip assassinated Austro-Hungary’s heir apparent Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sofia in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The fact that the anniversaries of both the beginning and end of the First World War occur on the same day is poetic. In 1919, most of the nations involved in that great war signed the Treaty of Versailles and agreed to organize an international League of Nations, except one—the United States.

On this date in 1976, terrorist hijackers seized an Air France plane and flew it to Entebbe, Uganda. They held the passengers—mostly Israelis—as hostages. The world was aghast. A week later, a daring Israeli raid freed the hostages and quashed the terrorists’ plans.

The Lord, it’s said, works in strange and wondrous ways. An event in 1491 was perhaps more of the former and less of the latter. The founder of the Church of England was

Born on this day. Great Britain’s King Henry VIII was born in Greenwich, England. Henry VIII had more wives than most monarchs; was a glutton for good food; reputedly wrote songs like “Greensleeves;” and generally did more of everything than most people—including fighting with the Catholic Church.