January
January – English bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly proving the existence of DNA. January 1 – Estonia changes its currency from the mark to the kroon.
January 6–7 – The River Thames floods in London; 14 drown. On January 7 the moat at the Tower of London (drained in 1843 and planted with grass) is completely refilled by a tidal wave.
January 12 – Convicted American murderer Ruth Snyder is executed at Sing Sing.
January 17 – The OGPU arrests Leon Trotsky in Moscow; he assumes a status of passive resistance.
January 26 – The volcanic island Anak Krakatau appears. January 31 – Leon Trotsky is exiled to Alma-Ata.
February
February 11–19 – The 1928 Winter Olympics are held in St. Moritz, Switzerland, the first as a separate event. Sonja Henie of Norway wins her first gold medal in women's figure skating.
February 12 – Heavy hail kills 11 in England.
February 20 – The Japanese general election produces a hung parliament.
February 25 – Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, D.C., becomes the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission.
March
March 12 – In California, the St. Francis Dam north of Los Angeles fails, killing 600.
March 15 – March 15 incident: The Japanese government cracks down on socialists and communists.
March 21 – Charles Lindbergh is presented the Medal of Honor for his first Transatlantic flight.
March 26 – The China Academy of Art is founded in Hangzhou (originally named the National Academy of Art).
April
April – The last section ("wise – wyze") of the original Oxford English Dictionary is completed and ready for publication. April 10 – "Pineapple Primary": The United States Republican Party primary elections in Chicago are preceded by violence, bombings and assassination attempts (two politicians are killed, Octavius C. Granady and Giuseppe Esposito).
April 12 – A bomb attack against Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini in Milan kills 17 bystanders.
April 12–14 – The first ever east–west transatlantic flight by aeroplane takes place from Dublin, Ireland, to Greenly Island, Canada, using German Junkers W 33 Bremen.
April 14 – Two earthquakes in Chirpan and Plovdiv in Bulgaria destroy more than 21,000 buildings and kill almost 130 people.
April 22 – An earthquake destroys 200,000 buildings in Corinth.
April 28 – 28 inches of snow fall in southern-central Pennsylvania.
May
May 3 – Jinan Incident: An armed conflict between the Imperial Japanese Army allied with Northern Chinese warlords against the Kuomintang's southern army, occurs in Jinan, China.
May 7 – Passage of the Representation of the People Act in the United Kingdom lowers the voting age for women from 30 to 21 giving them equal suffrage with men from July 2. May 10 – The first regular schedule of television programming begins in Schenectady, New York by the General Electric's television station W2XB (the station is popularly known as WGY Television, after its sister radio station WGY).
May 15
The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia commences operations.
The animated short Plane Crazy is released by Disney Studios in Los Angeles, featuring the first appearances of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
May 23 – A bomb attack against the Italian consulate in Buenos Aires, Argentina kills 22 and injures 43.
May 24 – The airship Italia crashes at the North Pole; one of the occupants is Italian general Umberto Nobile. A rescue expedition leaves for the Pole on May 30.
May 30 – Rookie driver Louis Meyer wins his first Indianapolis 500. He would win that race again in 1933 and 1936.
June
June 3 – American serial killer Albert Fish kidnaps and kills 10-year-old Grace Budd.
June 4 – Huanggutun Incident: Zhang Zuolin, a warlord, is killed by Japanese agents.
June 8 – By seizing Beijing and renaming it Běipíng, the National Revolutionary Army puts an end to the 'Fengtian warlords' Běiyáng government there.
June 11 – A medical doctors' strike begins in Vienna.
June 14 – Students take over the medical wing of Rosario University in Argentina.
June 17–18 – Aviatrix Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to make a successful Transatlantic flight, as a passenger in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m piloted by Wilmer Stultz from Newfoundland to Wales.
June 20 – Puniša Račić kills three opposition representatives in the Yugoslavian Parliament, and injures three others in gun attack.
June 24 – A Swedish aeroplane rescues part of the Italian North Pole expedition, including Umberto Nobile. The Soviet icebreaker Krasin saves the rest July 12.
June 28 – The International Railway (New York–Ontario) switches to one-man crews for its trolleys in Canada.
June 29 – At the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston, Governor of New York Al Smith becomes the first Catholic nominated by a major political party for President of the United States.
July
July 2 – Charles Jenkins Laboratories' W3XK station begins broadcasting on 6.42 MHz using 48 lines.
July 3 – British inventor John Logie Baird demonstrates the world's first color television transmission.[8]
July 7 – The first machine-sliced and machine-wrapped loaf of bread is sold in Chillicothe, Missouri, using Otto Frederick Rohwedder's technology.
July 12 – Mexican aviator Emilio Carranza dies in a solo plane crash in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, while returning from a goodwill flight to New York City.
July 17 – José de León Toral assassinates Álvaro Obregón, president of Mexico.
July 25 – The United States recalls its troops from China.
July 27
English cricketer Tich Freeman becomes the only bowler ever to take 200 first-class wickets before the end of July.
Radclyffe Hall's novel The Well of Loneliness, with its theme of lesbian love, is published in London.
July 28–August 12 – The 1928 Summer Olympics are held in Amsterdam, opening with the lighting of the Olympic flame. Women's athletics and gymnastics debut at these games and discus thrower Halina Konopacka of Poland became the first female Olympic gold medal winner for a track or field event. Coca-Cola enters Europe as sponsor of the games.
August
August 2 – Italy and Ethiopia sign the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty.
August 16 – Serial killer Carl Panzram is arrested in Washington, D.C., for burglary. According to his confession, "In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and, last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry."
August 22 – Al Smith accepts the Democratic presidential nomination, with WGY/W2XB simulcasting the event on radio and television.
August 25 – Ahmet Zogu proclaims himself King Zog of Albania; he is crowned September 1.
August 26 – In Scotland, May Donoghue finds the remains of a snail in her ginger beer, leading to the landmark negligence case Donoghue v Stevenson. August 27 – The Kellogg–Briand Pact is signed in Paris, the first treaty to outlaw aggressive war.
August 29 – C.D. Motagua is founded as an Association football club in Honduras.
August 31 – The Threepenny Opera (German: Die Dreigroschenoper) by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill opens at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, Berlin.
September
September 1
Ahmet Zogu, President of the Albanian Republic, declares the country to be a constitutional monarchy, the Albanian Kingdom, with himself as King Zog I.
Richard E. Byrd leaves New York for the Arctic.
September 3
Philo Farnsworth demonstrates to the Press in San Francisco the world's first working all-electronic television system, employing electronic scanning in both the pickup and display devices. Alexander Fleming, at St Mary's Hospital, London, accidentally rediscovers the antibiotic Penicillin. September 11 – The Queen's Messenger is the first melodrama broadcast by Ernst F.W. Alexanderson at W2XAD (Schenectady, New York); WMAK (Kenmore) begins broadcasting in Buffalo, New York.
September 15 – Tich Freeman sets an all-time record for the number of wickets taken in an English cricket season.
September 16 – The Okeechobee hurricane kills at least 2,500 people in Florida.
September 25 – Paul and Joseph Galvin incorporate the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation (later known as Motorola and Freescale).
October
October 2 – Josemaría Escrivá founds Opus Dei.
October 7 – Haile Selassie is crowned king (not yet emperor) of Abyssinia.
October 8 – Chiang Kai-shek is named as Generalissimo (Chairman of the National Military Council) of the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China.
October 12 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston.
October 19 – William Edward Hickman is executed at San Quentin State Prison for the 1927 murder of 12-year-old Marion Parker.
October 22 – The Phi Sigma Alpha Fraternity is founded at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus.
October 26 – The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (ICRM) is formally established, with the adoption of the “Statutes of the International Red Cross”
November
November 2 – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has a new lion (Telly) in its logo.
November 4 – Arnold Rothstein, New York City's most notorious gambler, is shot to death over a poker game in a Manhattan hotel.
November 6
United States presidential election, 1928: Republican Herbert Hoover wins by a wide margin over Democratic Governor of New York Al Smith.
Swedes start a tradition of eating Gustavus Adolphus pastries to commemorate the 17th-century king on the anniversary of his death in battle.
November 10 – The enthronement ceremony of Emperor of Japan Hirohito, is held two years after he actually took the imperial throne on December 26, 1926, following the death of Emperor Taishō.
November 12 – The SS Vestris develops a severe starboard list, is abandoned and sinks approximately 200 miles off Hampton Roads, Virginia. Estimates of the dead range from 110 to 127.
November 17 – Boston Garden opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
November 18 – Mickey Mouse appears in Steamboat Willie, the third Mickey Mouse cartoon released, but the first sound film and the first such film to be generally distributed.
November 22 – The one-movement ballet Boléro with music by Maurice Ravel and choreography by Bronislava Nijinska premières at the Paris Opéra to a commission by Ida Rubinstein.
December
December 3 – In Rio de Janeiro, a seaplane sent to greet Alberto Santos-Dumont crashes near Cap Arcona, killing all on board.
December 21 – The United States Congress approves the construction of Boulder Dam, later renamed Hoover Dam.
January – English bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly proving the existence of DNA. January 1 – Estonia changes its currency from the mark to the kroon.
January 6–7 – The River Thames floods in London; 14 drown. On January 7 the moat at the Tower of London (drained in 1843 and planted with grass) is completely refilled by a tidal wave.
January 12 – Convicted American murderer Ruth Snyder is executed at Sing Sing.
January 17 – The OGPU arrests Leon Trotsky in Moscow; he assumes a status of passive resistance.
January 26 – The volcanic island Anak Krakatau appears. January 31 – Leon Trotsky is exiled to Alma-Ata.
February
February 11–19 – The 1928 Winter Olympics are held in St. Moritz, Switzerland, the first as a separate event. Sonja Henie of Norway wins her first gold medal in women's figure skating.
February 12 – Heavy hail kills 11 in England.
February 20 – The Japanese general election produces a hung parliament.
February 25 – Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, D.C., becomes the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission.
March
March 12 – In California, the St. Francis Dam north of Los Angeles fails, killing 600.
March 15 – March 15 incident: The Japanese government cracks down on socialists and communists.
March 21 – Charles Lindbergh is presented the Medal of Honor for his first Transatlantic flight.
March 26 – The China Academy of Art is founded in Hangzhou (originally named the National Academy of Art).
April
April – The last section ("wise – wyze") of the original Oxford English Dictionary is completed and ready for publication. April 10 – "Pineapple Primary": The United States Republican Party primary elections in Chicago are preceded by violence, bombings and assassination attempts (two politicians are killed, Octavius C. Granady and Giuseppe Esposito).
April 12 – A bomb attack against Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini in Milan kills 17 bystanders.
April 12–14 – The first ever east–west transatlantic flight by aeroplane takes place from Dublin, Ireland, to Greenly Island, Canada, using German Junkers W 33 Bremen.
April 14 – Two earthquakes in Chirpan and Plovdiv in Bulgaria destroy more than 21,000 buildings and kill almost 130 people.
April 22 – An earthquake destroys 200,000 buildings in Corinth.
April 28 – 28 inches of snow fall in southern-central Pennsylvania.
May
May 3 – Jinan Incident: An armed conflict between the Imperial Japanese Army allied with Northern Chinese warlords against the Kuomintang's southern army, occurs in Jinan, China.
May 7 – Passage of the Representation of the People Act in the United Kingdom lowers the voting age for women from 30 to 21 giving them equal suffrage with men from July 2. May 10 – The first regular schedule of television programming begins in Schenectady, New York by the General Electric's television station W2XB (the station is popularly known as WGY Television, after its sister radio station WGY).
May 15
The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia commences operations.
The animated short Plane Crazy is released by Disney Studios in Los Angeles, featuring the first appearances of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
May 23 – A bomb attack against the Italian consulate in Buenos Aires, Argentina kills 22 and injures 43.
May 24 – The airship Italia crashes at the North Pole; one of the occupants is Italian general Umberto Nobile. A rescue expedition leaves for the Pole on May 30.
May 30 – Rookie driver Louis Meyer wins his first Indianapolis 500. He would win that race again in 1933 and 1936.
June
June 3 – American serial killer Albert Fish kidnaps and kills 10-year-old Grace Budd.
June 4 – Huanggutun Incident: Zhang Zuolin, a warlord, is killed by Japanese agents.
June 8 – By seizing Beijing and renaming it Běipíng, the National Revolutionary Army puts an end to the 'Fengtian warlords' Běiyáng government there.
June 11 – A medical doctors' strike begins in Vienna.
June 14 – Students take over the medical wing of Rosario University in Argentina.
June 17–18 – Aviatrix Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to make a successful Transatlantic flight, as a passenger in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m piloted by Wilmer Stultz from Newfoundland to Wales.
June 20 – Puniša Račić kills three opposition representatives in the Yugoslavian Parliament, and injures three others in gun attack.
June 24 – A Swedish aeroplane rescues part of the Italian North Pole expedition, including Umberto Nobile. The Soviet icebreaker Krasin saves the rest July 12.
June 28 – The International Railway (New York–Ontario) switches to one-man crews for its trolleys in Canada.
June 29 – At the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston, Governor of New York Al Smith becomes the first Catholic nominated by a major political party for President of the United States.
July
July 2 – Charles Jenkins Laboratories' W3XK station begins broadcasting on 6.42 MHz using 48 lines.
July 3 – British inventor John Logie Baird demonstrates the world's first color television transmission.[8]
July 7 – The first machine-sliced and machine-wrapped loaf of bread is sold in Chillicothe, Missouri, using Otto Frederick Rohwedder's technology.
July 12 – Mexican aviator Emilio Carranza dies in a solo plane crash in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, while returning from a goodwill flight to New York City.
July 17 – José de León Toral assassinates Álvaro Obregón, president of Mexico.
July 25 – The United States recalls its troops from China.
July 27
English cricketer Tich Freeman becomes the only bowler ever to take 200 first-class wickets before the end of July.
Radclyffe Hall's novel The Well of Loneliness, with its theme of lesbian love, is published in London.
July 28–August 12 – The 1928 Summer Olympics are held in Amsterdam, opening with the lighting of the Olympic flame. Women's athletics and gymnastics debut at these games and discus thrower Halina Konopacka of Poland became the first female Olympic gold medal winner for a track or field event. Coca-Cola enters Europe as sponsor of the games.
August
August 2 – Italy and Ethiopia sign the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty.
August 16 – Serial killer Carl Panzram is arrested in Washington, D.C., for burglary. According to his confession, "In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and, last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry."
August 22 – Al Smith accepts the Democratic presidential nomination, with WGY/W2XB simulcasting the event on radio and television.
August 25 – Ahmet Zogu proclaims himself King Zog of Albania; he is crowned September 1.
August 26 – In Scotland, May Donoghue finds the remains of a snail in her ginger beer, leading to the landmark negligence case Donoghue v Stevenson. August 27 – The Kellogg–Briand Pact is signed in Paris, the first treaty to outlaw aggressive war.
August 29 – C.D. Motagua is founded as an Association football club in Honduras.
August 31 – The Threepenny Opera (German: Die Dreigroschenoper) by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill opens at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, Berlin.
September
September 1
Ahmet Zogu, President of the Albanian Republic, declares the country to be a constitutional monarchy, the Albanian Kingdom, with himself as King Zog I.
Richard E. Byrd leaves New York for the Arctic.
September 3
Philo Farnsworth demonstrates to the Press in San Francisco the world's first working all-electronic television system, employing electronic scanning in both the pickup and display devices. Alexander Fleming, at St Mary's Hospital, London, accidentally rediscovers the antibiotic Penicillin. September 11 – The Queen's Messenger is the first melodrama broadcast by Ernst F.W. Alexanderson at W2XAD (Schenectady, New York); WMAK (Kenmore) begins broadcasting in Buffalo, New York.
September 15 – Tich Freeman sets an all-time record for the number of wickets taken in an English cricket season.
September 16 – The Okeechobee hurricane kills at least 2,500 people in Florida.
September 25 – Paul and Joseph Galvin incorporate the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation (later known as Motorola and Freescale).
October
October 2 – Josemaría Escrivá founds Opus Dei.
October 7 – Haile Selassie is crowned king (not yet emperor) of Abyssinia.
October 8 – Chiang Kai-shek is named as Generalissimo (Chairman of the National Military Council) of the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China.
October 12 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston.
October 19 – William Edward Hickman is executed at San Quentin State Prison for the 1927 murder of 12-year-old Marion Parker.
October 22 – The Phi Sigma Alpha Fraternity is founded at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus.
October 26 – The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (ICRM) is formally established, with the adoption of the “Statutes of the International Red Cross”
November
November 2 – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has a new lion (Telly) in its logo.
November 4 – Arnold Rothstein, New York City's most notorious gambler, is shot to death over a poker game in a Manhattan hotel.
November 6
United States presidential election, 1928: Republican Herbert Hoover wins by a wide margin over Democratic Governor of New York Al Smith.
Swedes start a tradition of eating Gustavus Adolphus pastries to commemorate the 17th-century king on the anniversary of his death in battle.
November 10 – The enthronement ceremony of Emperor of Japan Hirohito, is held two years after he actually took the imperial throne on December 26, 1926, following the death of Emperor Taishō.
November 12 – The SS Vestris develops a severe starboard list, is abandoned and sinks approximately 200 miles off Hampton Roads, Virginia. Estimates of the dead range from 110 to 127.
November 17 – Boston Garden opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
November 18 – Mickey Mouse appears in Steamboat Willie, the third Mickey Mouse cartoon released, but the first sound film and the first such film to be generally distributed.
November 22 – The one-movement ballet Boléro with music by Maurice Ravel and choreography by Bronislava Nijinska premières at the Paris Opéra to a commission by Ida Rubinstein.
December
December 3 – In Rio de Janeiro, a seaplane sent to greet Alberto Santos-Dumont crashes near Cap Arcona, killing all on board.
December 21 – The United States Congress approves the construction of Boulder Dam, later renamed Hoover Dam.