First commercial movie screened
On December 28, 1895, the world’s first commercial movie screening takes place at the Grand Cafe in Paris. The film was made by Louis and Auguste Lumiere, two French brothers who developed a camera-projector called the Cinematographe. The Lumiere brothers unveiled their invention to the public in March 1895 with a brief film showing workers leaving the Lumiere factory. On December 28, the entrepreneurial siblings screened a series of short scenes from everyday French life and charged admission for the first time.
Movie technology has its roots in the early 1830s, when Joseph Plateau of Belgium and Simon Stampfer of Austria simultaneously developed a device called the phenakistoscope, which incorporated a spinning disc with slots through which a series of drawings could be viewed, creating the effect of a single moving image. The phenakistoscope, considered the precursor of modern motion pictures, was followed by decades of advances and in 1890, Thomas Edison and his assistant William Dickson developed the first motion-picture camera, called the Kinetograph. The next year, 1891, Edison invented the Kinetoscope, a machine with a peephole viewer that allowed one person to watch a strip of film as it moved past a light.
In 1894, Antoine Lumiere, the father of Auguste (1862-1954) and Louis (1864-1948), saw a demonstration of Edison’s Kinetoscope. The elder Lumiere was impressed, but reportedly told his sons, who ran a successful photographic plate factory in Lyon, France, that they could come up with something better. Louis Lumiere’s Cinematographe, which was patented in 1895, was a combination movie camera and projector that could display moving images on a screen for an audience. The Cinematographe was also smaller, lighter and used less film than Edison’s technology.
The Lumieres opened theaters (known as cinemas) in 1896 to show their work and sent crews of cameramen around the world to screen films and shoot new material. In America, the film industry quickly took off. In 1896, Vitascope Hall, believed to be the first theater in the U.S. devoted to showing movies, opened in New Orleans. In 1909, The New York Times published its first film review (of D.W. Griffith’s Pippa Passes), in 1911 the first Hollywood film studio opened and in 1914, Charlie Chaplin made his big-screen debut.
In addition to the Cinematographe, the Lumieres also developed the first practical color photography process, the Autochrome plate, which debuted in 1907.
SPORTS
1958
Colts win NFL title in 'Greatest Game Ever Played'
On December 28, 1958, the Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants, 23-17, in overtime in the NFL Championship Game—a back-and-forth thriller that later is billed as "The Greatest Game Ever Played.” The nationally televised championship—the league's first overtime contest—is watched by 45 million viewers and fuels the NFL's meteroric rise in popularity.
SPORTS
1975
Dallas Cowboys win playoff game on 'Hail Mary' pass
On December 28, 1975, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach throws a 50-yard touchdown pass to Drew Pearson in the waning seconds to beat the Minnesota Vikings in a playoff game, 17-14. Afterward, Staubach calls the miraculous touchdown a "Hail Mary," thus cementing the term for a desperation pass in the sports lexicon.
US GOVERNMENT
1973
Endangered Species Act signed into law
On December 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signs the Endangered Species Act into law. The act, which Nixon called for the previous year, is considered one of the most significant and influential environmental laws in American history.
INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1981
First American "test-tube baby" is born
On December 28, 1981, the first American "test-tube baby," a child born as a result of in-vitro fertilization, is born in Norfolk, Virginia. Considered a miracle at the time, births like that of Elizabeth Jordan Carr are now common.
NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT
1908
Worst European earthquake ever recorded
At dawn, the most destructive earthquake in recorded European history strikes the Straits of Messina in southern Italy, leveling the cities of Messina in Sicily and Reggio di Calabria on the Italian mainland. The earthquake and tsunami it caused killed an estimated 100,000 people.
US POLITICS
1832
John C. Calhoun resigns vice presidency
Citing political differences with President Andrew Jackson and a desire to fill a vacant Senate seat in South Carolina, John C. Calhoun becomes the first vice president in U.S. history to resign the office. Born near Abbeville, South Carolina, in 1782, Calhoun was an advocate of states’ rights and a defender of the agrarian South against the industrial North. Calhoun served as secretary of war under President James Monroe and in 1824 ran for the presidency. However, bitter partisan attacks from other contenders forced him out of the race, and he had to settle for the vice presidency under President John Quincy Adams. In 1828, he was again elected vice president while Andrew Jackson won the presidency. Calhoun soon found himself politically isolated from national affairs under President Jackson. On December 12, 1832, Calhoun was elected to fill a South Carolina Senate seat left vacant after the resignation of Senator Robert Hayne. Sixteen days later, he resigned the vice presidency.
HOLIDAYS
1869
America’s first Labor Day
The Knights of Labor, a labor union of tailors in Philadelphia, hold the first Labor Day ceremonies in American history. The Knights of Labor was established as a secret society of Pennsylvanian tailors earlier in the year and later grew into a national body that played an important role in the labor movement of the late 19th century.
VIETNAM WAR
1964
South Vietnamese win costly battle at Binh Gia
South Vietnamese troops retake Binh Gia in a costly battle. The Viet Cong launched a major offensive on December 4 and took the village of Binh Gia, 40 miles southeast of Saigon. The South Vietnamese forces recaptured the village, but only after an eight-hour battle and three battalions of reinforcements were brought in on helicopters. The operation continued into the first week of January. Losses included an estimated 200 South Vietnamese and five U.S. advisors killed, plus 300 more South Vietnamese wounded or missing. Battles such this, in which the South Vietnamese suffered such heavy losses at the hands of the Viet Cong, convinced President Lyndon B. Johnson that the South Vietnamese could not defeat the communist without the commitment of U.S. ground troops to the war.
U.S. PRESIDENTS
1856
Woodrow Wilson born in Staunton, Virginia
Future President Woodrow Wilson is born in Staunton, Virginia on December 28, 1856. He attended private schools and graduated from Princeton University in 1879 before studying law at the University of Virginia and earning his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1991
Nine killed in a stampede outside a hip-hop celebrity basketball game
Nine young people die in a crowd stampede in New York City on December 28, 1991. The event was a charity basketball gamed headlined by hip-hop stars Heavy D. and Puff Daddy. Shortly after 6:00 p.m., according to eyewitness accounts, the crowd outside the City University of New York broke at least one of the glass doors separating them from the building lobby. Despite the presence of at least 66 New York City Police officers, 38 City College campus-security officers and 20 private security guards hired by the event’s promoters, the crowd was able to surge through those doors and rush into the building shortly after 7:00 p.m., when the event finally got underway.
CRIME
1793
Writer Thomas Paine is arrested in France
Thomas Paine is arrested in France for treason. Though the charges against him were never detailed, he had been tried in absentia on December 26 and convicted. Before moving to France, Paine was an instrumental figure in the American Revolution as the author of Common Sense, writings used by George Washington to inspire the American troops. Paine moved to Paris to become involved with the French Revolution, but the chaotic political climate turned against him, and he was arrested and jailed for crimes against the country.
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1973
"The Gulag Archipelago" is published
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “literary investigation” of the police-state system in the Soviet Union, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956, is published in the original Russian in Paris. The book was the first of the three-volume work.
INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1938
Silent-film star and inventor Florence Lawrence dies
On December 28, 1938, the silent-film star Florence Lawrence dies by suicide in Beverly Hills. She was 52 years old. Though she was best known for her roles in nearly 250 films, Lawrence was also an inventor: She designed the first “auto signaling arm,” a mechanical turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. She did not patent these inventions, however, and as a result she received no credit for–or profit from–either one.
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