| 28 October 1061 | Holy Roman Empire [administration] | Cadalus, bishop of Parma, Italy, an opponent of the papal reform movement, is crowned as antipope Honorius II in Basel, in the presence of King Henry IV of Germany. |
| 28 October 1216 | England [political events] | King John of England's son, Henry III, a minor, is crowned king of England at Gloucester. William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, is appointed his guardian. |
| 28 October 1344 | Anatolia [wars] | A crusading fleet organized by Pope Clement VI takes the Turkish-held port of Smyrna in Anatolia (modern Izmir, Turkey). The port is held, first by Papal forces and then by the Knights Hospitaller, until 1402. |
| 28 October 1469 | Netherlands [births and deaths] | Desiderius Erasmus, humanist, considered the greatest scholar of the northern European Renaissance, born in Rotterdam, Netherlands (–1536). |
| 28 October 1497 | Sweden, Denmark-Norway [political events] | King John II of Denmark, invited into Sweden by a council of the realm discontented with the power of the regent, Sten Sture, defeats the regent's forces outside Stockholm, Sweden, reviving the Scandinavian Union of Kalmar. |
| 28 October 1636 | North America [universities and colleges] | A school intended as a training college for Puritan ministers is founded in New Towne (now Cambridge), Massachusetts, with Reverend Henry Dunster as its first president. A gift from the English-born American clergyman John Harvard allows it to remain in existence, and in 1639 the Massachusetts General Court issues a decree naming the school Harvard College. |
| 28 October 1704 | England [births and deaths] | John Locke, highly influential English political and educational philosopher, whose major work is Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), dies in Oates, Essex, England (72). |
| 28 October 1728 | England, Canada, Pacific [births and deaths] | James Cook, English naval captain and navigator who explored Canada's coasts and the Pacific, born in Marton-in-Cleveland, Yorkshire, England (–1779). |
| 28 October 1740 | Russia [political events] | Following the death of Empress Anna of Russia, she is succeeded by Ivan VI, the Grandson of Anna's sister Catherine. Ivan's mother acts as regent, but the real power is in the hands of Count Burkhard Christoph von Münnich, who succeeds in banishing Anna's favourite, Ernst Biron, duke of Courland, from Russia. |
| 28 October 1886 | USA, France [other structures] | The Statue of Liberty is dedicated on Liberty Island (Bedloe's Island) in New York Harbour, New York, by US president Grover Cleveland. Designed by the French artist Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, on a frame built by Gustave Eiffel, it was presented to the USA by the French government to celebrate the 100th anniversary of US independence. Made of copper, it is 46 m/152 ft high. Its full name is Liberty Enlightening the World. |
| 28 October 1903 | [births and deaths] | Evelyn Waugh, English satirical novelist, born in London, England (–1966). |
| 28 October 1917 | Italy [law and government] | Vittorio Orlando becomes Italian prime minister following the major military defeat at Caporetto, and establishes a Unione Sacra coalition government which keeps Italy in the war. |
| 28 October 1922 | Italy [political events] | The fascists in Italy begin the ‘March on Rome’ to bring down the government. |
| 28 October 1955 | USA [births and deaths] | Bill Gates, US computer software executive who developed and marketed the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) which is standard on almost all IBM and IBM-compatible computers, born in Seattle, Washington. |
| 28 October 1962 | USA, USSR, Cuba [diplomacy] | The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he has ordered the withdrawal of nuclear missiles from Cuba, and the US president John F Kennedy promises the USA will not invade Cuba, ending the Cuban Missile Crisis. |
