William Blake was born, Washington Irving died, and William Penn (finally) became a citizen

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the fun and the fascinating events of November 28 throughout history.

-In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan (===>) and his crews became the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean after they navigated their three ships through the South American strait to reach the Pacific.

-William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway paid £40 in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1582 for their marriage license.

-An organization that later became known as the Royal Society was formed by 12 men at Gresham College in 1660. The society, which serves as the academy of sciences for the United Kingdom, is supposedly the oldest such society still in existence today.

-Jean de Thévenot died in 1667. Born in France, he traveled extensively throughout Europe and the East and was a polyglot skilled in Turkish, Arabic, and Persian.

-William Blake, the poet, painter, and printmaker, was born in 1757. In 2002, a BBC poll declared him #38 of the 100 Greatest Britons.

-The co-author of The Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels, was born in 1820. The social scientist and philosopher also edited the second and third volumes of Das Kapital after Karl Marx's death.

-The first woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. was born in 1853. Helen Magill White attended Swarthmore College, where her father was president, for undergraduate study, and received a doctorate in Greek from Boston University in 1877.

-Washington Irving died in 1859. The author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, and biographies of George Washington and Muhammad, Irving was one of the first American writers to earn acclaim in Europe.

-Queen Mother Wilhelmina of the Netherlands died in 1962, after ruling the Netherlands for 58 years, longer than any other Dutch monarch.

-William Penn and his wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn, were made honorary citizens of the United States in 1984, over 250 years after their deaths.

-Russell Alan Hulse, who was born in 1950, and Enrico Fermi, who died in 1954, both received Nobel Prizes in Physics.

-Many members of royalty were born, including Manuel I Komnenos (1118), Greek Byzantine Emperor; Margaret Tudor (1489), wife of James IV of Scotland; Sophia Magdalen (1700), queen of Denmark and Norway; Alfonso XII (1857), king of Spain; Mary Lilian Baels (1916), wife of King Leopold III of Belgium; and Prince Hitachi of Japan (1935).

Does the 28th of November hold special significance to you?