1988: Three Italian air force jets collided and plunged into spectators watching a military airshow at a US air base in West Germany, killing 34 people and injuring more than 100, police said. Five Italian MB-339A jets were flying about 50-80 metres above the crowd at the Ramstein base. Then two of the jet trainers collided, tipping a third plane tail-first into spectators. The first two jets crashed nearby. A police spokesman in Ramstein said 70 people died and more than 100 were injured, many badly burned. The planes were flying in a heart-shaped formation above the ground shortly before the collision. Police said tens of thousands of spectators were watching the air display when the crash turned a peaceful Sunday outing into an inferno.
Other major events on August 28
1833 British Parliament bans slavery throughout British Empire.
1879 British troops capture Cetywayo in Zulu War.
1922 First radio commercial aired in New York.
1963 200,000 people participate in a civil rights rally in Washington, where Dr Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I have a dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
1964 The first weather satellite capable of providing night time cloud photos is launched.
1973 More than 600 are killed as quake flattens central Mexico.
1986 Bolivia president Victor Paz Estensoro declares a state of siege.
1989 Sikh gunmen raid passenger train in India’s Punjab State and massacre at least 22 Hindu passengers.
1990 Tornadoes kill at least 26 people near Chicago.
1993 Former deputy prime minister Ong Teng Cheong becomes Singapore’s first elected president after winning 59 per cent of the vote.
2003 Travel chaos hits London after a power cut left hundreds of thousands of commuters stranded in trains across the British capital.
2007 Abdullah Gul is sworn in as president of Turkey.
2013 11 people are killed after a two three-storey building collapses in Gujarat, India.
2014 Recep Tayyip Erdogan is sworn in as 12th president of Turkey.
2017 Indian guru Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim is sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges of rape.
