28 July It Happened Today

1655  Death of French soldier and dramatist Cyrano de Bergerac.

1741  Death of Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi.

1794  One of the architects of the “Reign of Terror” in France, Maximilien Robespierre, is himself guillotined.

1866  Birth of English children’s author Beatrix Potter.

1945  A B-25 bomber crashes into the 78th floor of the Empire State Building, killing 14.

2004  Death of English molecular biologist Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.