Georges Bouton was the nominal winner of the 'world's first motor race' on April 28, 1887, when he drove his first four-seater steam quadricycle, two kilometers from Neuilly Bridge to the Bois de Boulogne. He was the only entrant.
Badgers are very clean-living and will not defecate in their setts but have communal latrines elsewhere.
Henry J Heinz started making baked beans in 1895. He advertised them as “oven-baked beans in a pork and tomato sauce.”
Ferruccio Lamborghini, founder of Automobili Lamborghini, was born on April 28, 1916. Ferrucio Lamborghini began by making tractors out of parts from American and British military circles after the Second World War before turning to sports cars. He founded Lamborghini because he wanted to build a good touring car to compete against the cars of such makers as Ferrari.
The author Harper Lee was born Nelle Harper Lee in Monroeville, Alabama on April 28, 1926. Lee was named in honor of a grandmother called Ellen; (Nelle is Ellen spelled backwards). Until the day she died, the people in her life referred to Lee as Nelle. Her father an editor, lawyer and politician (he served in the Alabama House of Representatives) is purported to be the model upon some of the characteristics for Atticus Finch (from To Kill a Mockingbird) was based.
For more April 28 anniversaries, including the first battle in history won by gunpowder weapons, the death of the world's most traveled goat, and the first commercial airline flight across the Pacific, check out OnThatDay.
Today is the anniversary of the commander of The Bounty, Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors being set adrift after a mutiny by the rebel crew.
A 1960 reconstruction of HMS Bounty
The mission for the Bounty was to collect breadfruit from Tahiti in the hope that it could serve as cheap food for slaves in the West Indies.
The ship spent 10 months at sea sailing to Tahiti, where the crew spent a happy five months ashore and collected 1,015 breadfruit plants. Fletcher Christian fell in love with a Tahitian girl named Maimiti and he and the rest of the crew did not want to have to endure another long journey back to England.
The Bounty left Tahiti on April 4, 1789, on the way to Jamaica. On April 28, 1789, near the Friendly Islands, Fletcher Christian led a mutiny casting adrift Captain Bligh and 18 loyal crewmen in a small boat, while Christian and the Bounty went back to Tahiti. Christian and a small group of sailors, 11 Tahitian women, and 6 Tahitian men then went to the remote Pitcairn Island.
Bligh and the 18 sailors were cast adrift enough food and water for about a week. They were also given four cutlasses, a compass, and a quadrant, but no maps.
After being cast adrift, Captain Bligh survived a 47-day journey to Timor.
The first horse-drawn omnibus service was started by a businessman named Stanislas Baudry in the French city of Nantes in 1823 using two spring-suspended carriages, each for 16 passengers. It was a success and Baudry moved to Paris and launched the first omnibus service there on April 28, 1828. The service ran every 15 minutes between La Madeleine and La Bastille. Soon, there were 100 omnibuses in service in Paris, with 18 different itineraries. A journey cost 25 centimes.
Illustration of the car "Entreprise Générale des Omnibus" on an old map of Paris
WANT MORE THINGS THAT HAPPENED ON APRIL 28? CHECK OUT MY ONTHATDAY BLOG. HERE'S A LINK
