Today in History: July 28, US Army airplane crashes into Empire State Building
Today is Tuesday, July 28, the 209th day of 2026. There are 156 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On July 28, 1945, a U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashed into the 79th floor of New York’s Empire State Building, killing 14 people.
Also on this date:
In 1794, Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just were executed by guillotine during the French Revolution.
In 1914, World War I began as Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he was increasing the number of American troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.
In 1976, an earthquake devastated northern China, killing at least 242,000 people, according to an official estimate.
In 1984, the Los Angeles Summer Olympics officially opened; 14 Eastern Bloc countries, led by the Soviet Union, boycotted the Games.
In 1995, a jury in Union, South Carolina, rejected the death penalty for Susan Smith, sentencing her to life in prison for drowning her two young sons (Smith will next be eligible for parole in November 2026).
In 1996, 8,000-year-old human skeletal remains (later referred to as Kennewick Man) were discovered in a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington.
In 2004, the Irish Republican Army formally announced an end to its armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland.
In 2015, it was announced that Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. Naval intelligence analyst who had spent nearly three decades in prison for spying for Israel, had been granted parole.
In 2018, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the emeritus archbishop of Washington, D.C., following allegations of sexual abuse, including one involving an 11-year-old boy. Both died in April of 2025.
In 2019, a gunman opened fire at a popular garlic festival in Gilroy, California, killing three people, including a six-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl, and wounding 17 others before taking his own life.
Today’s Birthdays: Music conductor Riccardo Muti is 85. Former Senator and NBA Hall of Famer Bill Bradley is 83. “Garfield” creator Jim Davis is 81. TV producer Dick Ebersol is 79. Actor Sally Struthers is 79. Architect Santiago Calatrava is 75. CBS TV journalist Scott Pelley is 69. Actor Lori Loughlin is 62. Jazz musician-producer Delfeayo Marsalis is 61. UFC president Dana White is 57. Actor Elizabeth Berkley is 54. Basketball Hall of Famer Manu Ginobili is 49. Actor John David Washington is 42. Actor Dustin Milligan is 41. Rapper Soulja Boy is 36. England soccer star Harry Kane is 33. Pop/rock singer Cher Lloyd is 33. Golfer Nelly Korda is 28.