6/28/1873 Providence, RI the Howard Building (a.k.a. Phoenix Building) was damaged by two incendiary fires simultaneously set. Police extinguished one, “but the other, in the fifth story, gained some headway. The fire was confined to the upper part, but the whole of the great building was drenched with water.” Three firefighters were injured, one seriously.
6/28/1896 an Augusta, GA firefighter “died from the injuries he sustained while operating at a warehouse fire.”
6/28/1910 Paterson, NJ conflagration, five firefighters were injured by falling walls as the fire traveled on Main Street, from Ward to Market Street.
6/28/1960 a San Diego, CA firefighter died while operating at a fire.
6/28/1994 a Rusk, Texas firefighter died after he responded to a house fire. “After the fire was knocked down, he entered the structure to assist with overhaul operations in the area of origin. He was not wearing turnout gear or SCBA. After several minutes, he left the structure and collapsed in cardiac arrest. The fire had burned several hundred plastic video cassette tapes which gave off toxic gases. His death was attributed to a heart attack caused by inhalation of toxic gas; no autopsy was performed.”
6/28/1982 Portales, NM a predawn home explosion and fire killed five, four of them children. “A Gas Company crew on Monday was digging up a three-inch gas main that runs across the street from the Jones home.”
6/28/1980 a fire that was discovered at 2:43 a.m. in Underground Atlanta burned for more than six hours damaging several businesses and an abandoned hotel. “The buildings comprising Underground Atlanta were constructed during the city’s post-Civil War Reconstruction Era boom, between 1866 and 1871, when the city’s population doubled from 11,000 to 22,000 residents.” “Underground Atlanta is home to retail stores, restaurants, and several nightclubs and bars in Kenny’s Alley.”
6/28/1959 in a train derailment the head (end) of a LP-gas rail tank car was penetrated by coupler of the car behind it resulting in a tank rupture emitting Liquefied Petroleum Gas that ignited and exploded killing twenty-three in Meldrim, GA.
6/28/1909 Boston, MA Forest Hills District conflagration, the fire “destroyed three three-story wooden blocks, the property including the Forest Hills Hotel which had 400 guests.”
6/28/1899 Boston, MA the fireworks emporium of Heyer Brothers fire killed five and injured two. “The fire started in the back part of the lower floor, among the fireworks. This room, as well as the three floors above, was stocked with a miscellaneous assortment of fireworks destined for the Fourth of July trade. There were firecrackers, large and small, bombs, Roman candles, rockets and torpedoes, together with a large stock of banners, flags, uniforms, torches, etc.”
6/28/1893 Augusta, MI conflagration: “the fire destroyed all the buildings on both sides of the Main Street, from the depot as far as the park.”
6/28/1886 San Angelo, TX the Tom Green County Courthouse was damaged by fire. “It is supposed to have been caused by mice eating party matches, a box of which were in Mr. Zackry’s desk.”
6/28/1877 St. John, NB conflagration: fourteen died and over ninety were injured.
6/28/1870 Providence, RI Dorrence Street Dock fire “destroyed the coal elevator, sheds, and considerable of the stock.”
6/28/1870 Pittsburgh, PA an oil fire destroyed over 20,000 barrels after a lightning strike near the Sharpsburg Bridge, in the Eighteenth Ward around 3:00 p.m.
6/28/1992 just before 5:00 a.m. a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck in Landers, CA, 100 miles east of Los Angeles. About three hours later, a 6.3-magnitude tremor hit in Big Bear, not far from the original epicenter.
6/28/1896 Pittston, PA mine roof collapse killed nine.
6/28/1969 Stonewall riots in New York City starts the gay rights movement.
6/28/1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie were shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist leading to the outbreak of WW I.
6/28/1894 Labor Day was established as a federal employees’ holiday.