December 28 ...

In 1732 The Pennsylvania Gazette, owned by Benjamin Franklin, ran an ad for the first issue of Poor Richard's Almanack. In 1832 John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down over differences with President Jackson. In 1836 Mexico's independence was recognized by Spain. In 1846 Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the Union. In 1897 Cyrano de Bergerac a play by Edmond Rostand, premiered in Paris, France. In 1908 an earthquake killed over 75,000 at Messina in Sicily. In 1912 the first municipally-owned street cars were used on the streets of San Francisco, CA. In 1917 the New York Evening Mail published a facetious essay by H.L. Mencken on the history of bathtubs in America. In 1973 Alexander Solzhenitsyn published Gulag Archipelago, an expose of the Soviet prison system. In 1981 the first American test-tube baby was born in Norfolk, VA.