TODAY IN HISTORY - APRIL 28TH

1758 – James Monroe, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 5th President of the United States (d. 1831) is born.

1788 – Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the United States Constitution.

1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty: Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift and the rebel crew returns to Tahiti briefly and then sets sail for Pitcairn Island.

1881 – Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico.

1916 – Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian businessman, created Lamborghini (d. 1993) is born.

1930 – The Independence Producers hosted the first night game in the history of Organized Baseball in Independence, Kansas.

1932 – A vaccine for yellow fever is announced for use on humans.

1941 – Ann-Margret, Swedish-American actress, singer, and dancer is born.

1945 – Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are executed by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement.

1948 – Igor Stravinsky conducted the premier of his American ballet, Orpheus, in New York City at New York City Center.

1952 – Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

1965 – United States occupation of the Dominican Republic: American troops land in the Dominican Republic to "forestall establishment of a Communist dictatorship" and to evacuate U.S. Army troops.

1969 – Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France.

1970 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to fight communist sanctuaries in Cambodia.

1981 – Jessica Alba, American model and actress is born.

1986 – The United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise becomes the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to transit the Suez Canal, navigating from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to relieve the USS Coral Sea.

1986 – High levels of radiation resulting from the Chernobyl disaster are detected at a nuclear power plant in Sweden, leading Soviet authorities to publicly announce the accident.

1987 – American engineer Ben Linder is killed in an ambush by U.S.-funded Contras in northern Nicaragua.

1988 – Near Maui, Hawaii, flight attendant Clarabelle "C.B." Lansing is blown out of Aloha Airlines Flight 243, a Boeing 737, and falls to her death when part of the plane's fuselage rips open in mid-flight.

1994 – Former Central Intelligence Agency counterintelligence officer and analyst Aldrich Ames pleads guilty to giving U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia.

1995 – Melanie Martinez, American singer-songwriter is born.

1996 – Whitewater controversy: President Bill Clinton gives a 4½ hour videotaped testimony for the defense.

2014 – Jack Ramsay, American basketball player, coach, and sportscaster (b. 1925) dies.