TODAY IN HISTORY

 

Ted Williams becomes last MLB player to hit .400

On September 28, 1941, the last day of Major League Baseball's regular season, the Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams gets six hits in eight at-bats during a doubleheader in Philadelphia, boosting his average to .406. He becomes the first player since 1930 to hit .400. "I guess I'll be satisfied with that thrill out there today," he tells the Boston Globe about hitting .400. "... I never wanted anything harder in my life." 

In addition to his .406 batting average—no major league player since Williams has hit .400—the left fielder led the big leagues with 37 homers, 135 runs and a slugging average of .735. 

Williams, nicknamed “The Splendid Splinter” and “The Thumper,” began his big-league career with the Red Sox in 1939. In 1942, Williams won the American League Triple Crown, for highest batting average and most RBIs and home runs. He won the Triple Crown again in 1947.

In 1946 and 1949, Williams was named the American League’s Most Valuable Player, and in June 1960, he became the fourth player in major league history to hit 500 homers. He was selected to the All-Star team 17 times.

Williams, who spent his entire career with the Red Sox, played his final game on September 28, 1960, at Boston’s Fenway Park. He homered in his final at-bat, giving him 521 for his career. 

Williams retired with a lifetime batting average of .344, a .483 career on-base percentage and 2,654 hits. His achievements were all the more impressive because his career was interrupted twice for military service: Williams was a Marine Corps pilot during World War II and the Korean War and as a result missed nearly five MLB seasons.

Williams, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966, managed the Washington Senators (renamed the Texas Rangers in 1972) from 1969-1972. In 1984, the Boston Red Sox retired his No. 9 uniform number. 

Williams died of cardiac arrest at age 83 on July 5, 2002, in Florida. In a controversial move, his son sent his father’s body to be frozen at a cryonics laboratory.

SPORTS

1920

Eight MLB players indicted in "Black Sox Scandal"

On September 28, 1920, a Chicago grand jury indicts eight members of the Chicago White Sox on charges of fixing the 1919 World Series. White Sox owner Charles Comiskey immediately suspends Chick Gandil, Buck Weaver, Happy Felsch, Swede Risberg, Fred McMullin, Eddie Cicotte, Lefty Williams and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, who are notorious for their involvement in the "Black Sox Scandal."

21ST CENTURY

2018

Arctic shipping lane opens due to ice melt; cargo ship completes the journey

On September 28, 2018, the cargo ship Venta Maersk docks in St. Petersburg, Russia, more than a month after departing from Vladivostok on the other side of the country. The successful traversal of the Russian Arctic was a landmark moment for the international shipping industry, as well as a sobering reminder of the extent to which the Earth's ice caps had melted.

COLD WAR

1965

Fidel Castro announces that Cubans are free to leave the island

On September 28, 1965, six years after he led the Cuban Revolution and four years after the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion, Fidel Castro announces that any Cuban who wished to leave the island was free to do so. With Cuban forces no longer blocking civilians from leaving, a massive wave of emigration ensued, bringing hundreds of thousands of Cuban immigrants to Florida.

GREAT BRITAIN

1066

William the Conqueror invades England

Claiming his right to the English throne, William, duke of Normandy, invades England at Pevensey on Britain’s southeast coast. His subsequent defeat of King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings marked the beginning of a new era in British history. 

1990S

1994

Passenger ferry, Estonia, sinks, killing 852

On September 28, 1994, 852 people die in one of the worst maritime disasters of the century when the Estonia, a large car-and-passenger ferry, sinks in the Baltic Sea. The German-built ship was traveling on an overnight cruise from Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden, when it sank off the coast of Finland. Estonia, a former Soviet republic that gained its independence in 1991 (the last Russian troops left in 1994), was a popular and affordable travel destination for Swedes. The Estonia was a type of ferry known as a “ro-ro,” which featured a smorgasbord, live music, dancing and drinking and allowed people to drive vehicles onto one end of the ship and drive off on the other end.

ANCIENT EGYPT

48 B.C.

Pompey the Great assassinated

Upon landing in Egypt, Roman general and politician Pompey is murdered on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt. During his long career, Pompey the Great displayed exceptional military talents on the battlefield. He fought in Africa and Spain, quelled the slave revolt of Spartacus, cleared the Mediterranean of pirates, and conquered Armenia, Syria and Palestine. Appointed to organize the newly won Roman territories in the East, he proved a brilliant administrator.

SPORTS

1960

Ted Williams hits home run in last major league at-bat

On September 28, 1960, at Boston’s Fenway Park, Red Sox star Ted Williams hits a home run in the last at-bat of his 21-year career. Ted Williams once said it was his goal in life to “walk down the street [and have] folks say ‘there goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.’

WESTWARD EXPANSION

1542

Spanish explorer sails into San Diego Bay

On September 28, 1542, the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrives in San Diego Bay while searching for the Strait of Anian, a mythical all-water route across North America. Cabrillo was not the first to search for a water passage across the North American continent, and he would not be the last. Ever since the voyages of Columbus, Europeans had dreamed of finding a shorter trade route to the Orient. Once it became clear that North America was not India, as Columbus had believed, but an entirely new continent, explorers hoped that an all-water route through the New World might still be found. Vastly underestimating the breadth of the continent, early 16th and 17th century explorers like Cabrillo believed that one such route might be the elusive Strait of Anian, a navigable passage some sailors claimed linked the Pacific with the Gulf of Mexico.

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1901

TV host Ed Sullivan born

On September 28, 1901, Ed Sullivan, who will become the host of the long-running TV variety program The Ed Sullivan Show, is born in New York City. During the peak of its popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, Sullivan’s program showcased a wide range of entertainers, including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Rudolf Nureyev, Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope.

INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1918

Philadelphia parade exposes thousands to Spanish flu

On September 28, 1918, a Liberty Loan parade in Philadelphia prompts a huge outbreak of Spanish flu in the city. By the time the pandemic ended, an estimated 20 million to 50 million people were dead worldwide. Influenza is a highly contagious virus that attacks the respiratory system and can mutate very quickly to avoid being killed by the human immune system. Generally, only the very old and the very young are susceptible to death from the flu. Though a pandemic of the virus in 1889 had killed thousands all over the world, it was not until 1918 that the world discovered how deadly the flu could be.

CRIME

1988

A cult leader kills one of his followers

Roch Theriault fatally wounds Solange Boislard in Ontario, Canada. Theriault, the leader of the most bizarre and violent cult in Canadian history, often physically abused his followers. Obsessed with anatomy and medicine, Theriault performed crude intestinal surgery on Boislard by slicing open her abdomen and ripping out a piece of intestine with his bare hands. He then ordered another follower to stitch up the wound with a needle and thread. When she died the next day in agonizing pain, he sawed off the top of her head, and then sexually assaulted her. Before burying the woman, he removed a rib, which he wore around his neck.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1781

Battle of Yorktown begins

On September 28, 1781, General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia, in the most important battle of the Revolutionary War.

WORLD WAR I

1918

British soldier allegedly spares the life of an injured Adolf Hitler

On September 28, 1918, in an incident that would go down in the lore of World War I history—although the details of the event are still unclear—Private Henry Tandey, a British soldier serving near the French village of Marcoing, reportedly encounters a wounded German soldier and declines to shoot him, sparing the life of 29-year-old Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler.