1928

1845–1958	Germany [earth sciences]	German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion.
1928	Italy, USA, UK [fiction]	The English writer D H Lawrence publishes his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover privately in Florence, Italy. Thought obscene, the full text is not published until 1959 in the USA, and 1960 in Britain.
1928	[fiction]	The English writer Evelyn Waugh publishes his novel Decline and Fall.
1928	USA [food and drink]	The first homogenized peanut butter, Peter Pan Peanut Butter, is produced by Swift Packing Company in the USA.
1928	UK [medicine]	Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin when he notices that the mould Penicillium notatum, which has invaded a culture of staphylococci, inhibits the growth of the bacteria.
1928	Germany [opera]	The opera Die Dreigroschenoper/The Threepenny Opera by the German composer Kurt Weill is first performed, in Berlin, Germany. It is a modern interpretation of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera of 1728, with material by the German writer Bertolt Brecht.
1928	[philosophy]	German philosopher Rudolf Carnap publishes Der logische Aufbau der Welt/The Logical Structure of the World and Scheinproblem in der Philosophie/Pseudo-Problems in Philosophy.
1928	Russia [physics]	Russian-born US physicist George Gamow shows that the atom can be split using low-energy ions. It stimulates the development of particle accelerators.
1928	[poetry]	The Irish writer W B Yeats publishes his poetry collection The Tower, which includes ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ and ‘Among School Children’.
1928	[poetry]	The Spanish writer Federico García Lorca publishes his poetry collection Romancero gitano/Gypsy Ballads.
1928	China [archaeology]	Chinese archaeologist Li Chi, under the auspices of the Academia Sinica, begins the first excavations of An-Yang, the capital of the Shang dynasty (1384–1111 BC).
1928	[athletics]	Track and field events for women are introduced at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, in large part due to agitation from the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale (FSFI).
1928	USA [cinema and film]	The US company Western Electric develops a sound-on-film system with greater flexibility than Vitaphone (a sound-on-disc system), which has proved expensive and difficult to transport.
1928	[cinema and film]	The Walt Disney cartoon Steamboat Willie is released in the USA, starring Mickey Mouse, the first animated film with sound.
11 January 1928	[births and deaths]	Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet, dies in Dorchester, Dorset, England (87).
4 February 1928	United Kingdom [technology]	The first demonstration of colour television is given at the Dominion Hotel, London, England, on a 9 ft by 12 ft screen, by John Logie Baird.
27 April 1928	Portugal [political events]	The reforming Portuguese academic Antonio de Oliveira Salazar is given wide powers as minister of finance to address Portugal's economic problems.
12 May 1928	Italy [suffrage]	An Italian law abolishes female suffrage, reduces the electorate from 10 million to 3 million, and arranges for 400 government candidates to be accepted or rejected en bloc.
14 June 1928	[births and deaths]	Che (Ernesto) Guevara, Cuban and South American communist guerrilla, born in Rosario, Argentina (–1967).
14 June 1928	[births and deaths]	Emmeline Pankhurst, militant English suffragette, dies in London, England (69).
18 June 1928	[births and deaths]	Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer who was the first person to reach the South Pole, dies in the Arctic Ocean sometime after this date (he disappeared on this day; the exact date of his death is not known), while trying to rescue the Italian explorer Umberto Nobile (55).
24 June 1928	France [banking and finance]	The French franc is again devalued to make the national debt easier to pay as France's economic difficulties continue.
28 June 1928	Germany [political events]	Hermann Müller, Social Democrat, is appointed German chancellor (following the resignation of Wilhelm Marx's ministry on 13 June).
19 July 1928	Egypt [political events]	King Fuad I stages a coup in Egypt, where parliament is dissolved and the constitution suspended; the king rules by decree.
27 August 1928	France, USA, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium [political events]	The Kellogg–Briand Pact (drawn up by the US secretary of state F B Kellogg and the French foreign minister Aristide Briand), outlawing war and providing for the pacific settlement of disputes, is signed in Paris, France, by 15 states, including the USA.
1 September 1928	Albania [political events]	Albania is proclaimed a kingdom and President Ahmed Bey Zogu is elected as King Zog.
1 October 1928	USSR [political events]	The Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ends the New Economic Policy and introduces state-directed economic planning and distribution, the development of industry, and collectivization of agriculture, in accordance with the first Five-Year Plan.
6 October 1928	China [political events]	The nationalist leader Jiang Jie Shi is elected president of China, the Guomindang (Chinese National People's Party) having secured control of nearly all the country.
7 October 1928	Ethiopia [political events]	The modernizing Ras (prince) Tafari becomes negus (king) of Ethiopia on the death of Hapta Giorgis. He retains the position of regent and heir apparent to the empress Zauditu.
7 October 1928	USA [elections]	The Republican candidate Herbert Hoover wins the US presidential election with 444 electoral votes against Alfred E Smith, Democrat, with 87; the popular vote is Hoover, 21,391,381; Smith, 15,016,443; and Norman Thomas (Socialist), 267,835. In US Congressional elections, Republicans retain majorities in the House (267–167) and Senate (56–39).