Holidays Calendar for December 28, 2026
Hanukkah, also transliterated as Chanukah, is a Jewish eight-day festival of lights that starts on the 25th day of the month of Kislev. It commemorates the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem during the Maccabean Revolt, following Judah Maccabee’s victory over the Seleucids.
The feast of Holy Innocents, also known as Childermas, is observed in Western Christianity annually on December 28. This religious holiday is connected with the events described in the New Testament.
The archangel Gabriel is one of the most revered saints in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. On December 28 each year, thousands of pilgrims head to the small town of Kulubi to attend a church dedicated to Saint Gabriel and participate in a festive procession in honor of the feast of Saint Gabriel, referred to as Kulubi Gabriel.
Surprisingly, Azerbaijani defense layers didn’t have their own professional holiday until recently. President of Azerbaijani Ilham Aliyev established Defense Lawyer Day (also translated as Advocate Day) in 2019 as part of the celebration of the centenary of the Azerbaijani bar system. The holiday is celebrated annually on December 28.
National Security Employees Day in Tajikistan is celebrated annually on December 28. It was established in 2011 to commemorate the 20th founding anniversary of the State Committee for National Security of the Republic of Tajikistan.
Kwanzaa is an annual week-long celebration that is observed from December 26 to January 1. This holiday is celebrated in the United States and also in diaspora in the Western Africa. Kwanzaa honors the African heritage in African-American culture.
Short films rarely get the attention they deserve, and National Short Film Day was created to rectify this. It is celebrated on December 28 every year to commemorate the first commercial public short film screening that took place on this day in 1895.
Every year people of Thailand observe King Taksin Memorial Day on December 28. This national holiday celebrates the coronation anniversary of Taksin in 1767.
Anniversaries and Memorial Days →
Russia
Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Deportation of the Kalmyks
The Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Deportation of the Kalmyks is a solemn memorial day observed in the Republic of Kalmykia (a federal subject of Russia) on December 28. It was established by the Parliament of Kalmykia in 2004 to honor the memory of Kalmyks who were repressed by the Soviet government during World War II.
The Pledge of Allegiance is something that most Americans know by heart because they used to recite it regularly in school. Pledge of Allegiance Day, celebrated annually on December 28, was created to celebrate the patriotic verse that has been around since the end of the 19th century.
Chocolate candy is one of the most popular sweets in the world, no wonder it has its own holiday. National Chocolate Candy Day is celebrated annually on December 28.
Grab a deck of cards and invite your friends over for a game night on December 28 to celebrate National Card Playing Day. This unofficial holiday is dedicated to one of the most popular pastimes that has been around since at least the 9th century.
December 28 is the perfect day to reach out to a friend or friends you haven’t talked to in a while because it is National Call a Friend Day. This amazing holiday was created to encourage people to talk to their friends more often instead of simply messaging them.
National Download Day is celebrated annually on December 28. It was created to recognize how smartphones and software applications make our lives so much easier and to encourage users to download new apps.
This Day in History
- 2018 Died: Amos Oz, Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual. His work has received many honors and awards, among them the Legion of Honor of France, the Goethe Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award in Literature, the Heinrich Heine Prize, and the Israel Prize.
- 2016 Died: Debbie Reynolds, American actress, singer, businesswoman, film historian, and humanitarian. She suffered a severe stroke one day after the death of her daughter, actress and writer Carrie Fisher.
- 2014 162 people were killed when Indonesia AirAsia Flight 5801 crashed into the Karimata Strait en route from Surabaya to Singapore.
- 2010 Died: Billy Taylor, American composer, musician and educator. He was a jazz educator and activist and often traveled around the world as a jazz ambassador.
- 2004 Died: Susan Sontag, American writer and filmmaker, best known for her books On Photography, Against Interpretation, The Way We Live Now, Regarding the Pain of Others, The Volcano Lover, etc.
- 2000 US retail giant Montgomery Ward announced its going out of business after 128 years of functioning.
- 1989 Wilhelm Röntgen published a paper detailing his discovery of a new type of radiation that would later become known as x-rays.
- 1984 Died: Sam Peckinpah, American director, screenwriter and producer. He achieved prominence following the release of the epic The Wild Bunch in 1969. He was known for his innovative and explicit depiction of action and violence.
- 1981 Born: Sienna Miller, English actress, model and designer. Her first major work was a role in comedy drama Casanova. Her other successful works include The Girl, Layer Cake, The Edge of Love.
- 1979 Born: Noomi Rapace, Swedish actress who achieved international fame with her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptations of Stieg Larsson's Millennium series.
- 1978 Born: John Legend, American singer, songwriter, pianist, record producer, and actor. As of 2023, Legend has received a total of 12 Grammy Awards for his music.
- 1976 Born: Joe Manganiello, American actor, director, and author. His breakout role was as werewolf Alcide Herveaux in five seasons of the HBO series True Blood.
- 1972 Born: Seth Meyers, American comedian, television host, actor, writer, producer, and podcaster. As of 2023, he hosted Late Night with Seth Meyers on NBC.
- 1972 Kim Il-sung sworn into office as the first President of North Korea. At that time he was already Prime Minister of North Korea and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea.
- 1971 Died: Max Steiner, American composer of music for theater and films. He conducted his first operetta at the age of 12 and became a full-time professional when he was 15. Steiner composed over 300 film scores.
- 1969 Born: Linus Torvalds, Finnish-born American computer programmer, who was the principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel, the most popular kernel for operating systems.
- 1958 The Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants in the first ever National Football League sudden death overtime game at New York's Yankee Stadium. This game is called the "Greatest Game Ever Played".
- 1955 Born: Liu Xiaobo, Chinese writer, critic and activist. In 2010 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.
- 1954 Born: Denzel Washington, American actor and filmmaker, the winner three Golden Globe awards, two Academy Awards, and a Tony Award (as of 2023). His most prominent credits include Training Day, The Hurricane, Remember the Titans, The Great Debates, and more.
- 1950 Born: Hugh McDonald, American musician, best known as the unofficial bassist in the rock band Bon Jovi.
- 1947 Died: Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy from 1900 to 1946. His reign began with the assassination of his father Umberto I; it witnessed the involvement of Italy in both World Wars and the birth, rise, and fall of Italian Fascism.
- 1945 Died: Theodore Dreiser, American writer and journalist. He is best known for his novels, including Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy.
- 1944 Born: Kary Mullis, American chemist and author. In 1993 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in recognition of his improvement of the polymerase chain reaction technique.
- 1943 Born: Keith Floyd, British chef, restaurateur, and television personality, known for hosting cooking shows for the BBC. He published many books combining cookery and travel that became famous around the world.
- 1942 Czech soldiers Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík commenced Operation Anthropoid, a plot to assassinate high-ranking Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich. Although Heydrich was only injured, he died of his injuries on June 4, 1942.
- 1937 Died: Maurice Ravel, French composer, pianist and conductor. Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest composer of the 1920s-1930s.
- 1934 Born: Maggie Smith, English actress with an extensive stage and screen career spanning over seven decades. Her numerous accolades include two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, four Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award.
- 1932 Born: Nichelle Nichols, American actress, singer and dancer whose portrayal of Uhura in the Star Trek franchise was groundbreaking for African American actresses on American television.
- 1922 Born: Stan Lee, American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer. He is best known for co-creating some of the most iconic Marvel Comics characters.
- 1908 Over 75,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit Messina, Sicily, Italy.
- 1903 Born: John von Neumann, Hungarian mathematician, physicist and inventor. He's remembered for a number of major contributions to the fields of mathematics, physics, economics, computing, and statistics.
- 1902 The first indoor professional football game was held at Madison Square Garden, New York. The Syracuse Athletic Club defeated the New York Philadelphians, 5-0.
- 1895 The Lumière brothers performed for their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. This event marked the debut of the cinema.
- 1890 Died: Dennis Miller Bunker, American painter, known for his incredibly bright works. He was one of the major American painters of the 19th century.
- 1856 Born: Woodrow Wilson, American politician, the 28th President of the United States. His presidency lasted from March 4, 1913 to March 4, 1921.
- 1846 Iowa was admitted as the 29th state of the USA.
- 1734 Died: Rob Roy MacGregor, better known simply as Rob Roy, Scottish folk hero and outlaw of the early 18th century. Sometimes he is also referred to as the Scottish Robin Hood.
- 1708 Died: Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, French botanist, noted as the first person to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants.