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December 4, 2021

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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Year
2018
Month Day
September 28

Arctic shipping lane opens due to ice melt; cargo ship completes the journey

On September 28, 2018, the cargo ship Venta Maersk docks in St. Petersburg, Russia, more than a month after departing from Vladivostok on the other side of the country. The successful traversal of the Russian Arctic was a landmark moment for the international shipping industry, as well as a sobering reminder of the extent to which the Earth's ice caps had melted.

The search for a fast way to move cargo from one end of Eurasia to the other by sea had begun centuries ago, and was a major driver of European exploration of North America. Until the 2000s, the fastest means of making the journey was to go around South Asia and reach Europe via the Suez Canal. As climate change led to a decrease in ice around the North Pole, however, opportunities arose to for shipping companies to use waters that were previously impossible to navigate.

The Venta was not the first ship to make the journey through the Russian Arctic, and it needed assistance from an icebreaker for several days. The Northern Sea Route, as it is commonly called, is still not a regular shipping lane, and it is only usable by "ice-class" ships like the Venta. Nonetheless, the Venta's journey, and shipping companies' recent investment in building more vessels capable of repeating it, signal that climatologists and businesspeople alike believe it’s a safe bet that Arctic ice will continue to melt.

READ MORE: Climate Change History

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ALSO ON THIS DAY

Sports
1920

Eight MLB players indicted in "Black Sox Scandal"

On September 28, 1920, a Chicago grand jury indicts eight members of the Chicago White Sox on charges of fixing the 1919 World Series. White Sox owner Charles Comiskey immediately suspends Chick Gandil, Buck Weaver, Happy Felsch, Swede Risberg, Fred McMullin, Eddie Cicotte, Lefty ...read more

On This Day In History: Fidel Castro announces that Cubans are free to leave the island
Cold War
1965

Fidel Castro announces that Cubans are free to leave the island

On September 28, 1965, six years after he led the Cuban Revolution and four years after the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion, Fidel Castro announces that any Cuban who wished to leave the island was free to do so. With Cuban forces no longer blocking civilians from ...read more

Great Britain
1066

William the Conqueror invades England

Claiming his right to the English throne, William, duke of Normandy, invades England at Pevensey on Britain’s southeast coast. His subsequent defeat of King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings marked the beginning of a new era in British history. William was the illegitimate son ...read more

1990s
1994

Passenger ferry, Estonia, sinks, killing 852

On September 28, 1994, 852 people die in one of the worst maritime disasters of the century when the Estonia, a large car-and-passenger ferry, sinks in the Baltic Sea. The German-built ship was traveling on an overnight cruise from Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, to ...read more

Ancient Egypt
48 B.C.

Pompey the Great assassinated

Upon landing in Egypt, Roman general and politician Pompey is murdered on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt. During his long career, Pompey the Great displayed exceptional military talents on the battlefield. He fought in Africa and Spain, quelled the slave revolt of Spartacus, ...read more

Sports
1941

Ted Williams becomes last player to hit .400

On September 28, 1941, the last day of Major League Baseball's regular season, the Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams gets six hits in eight at-bats during a doubleheader in Philadelphia, boosting his average to .406. He becomes the first player since 1930 to hit .400. "I guess I'll ...read more

Sports
1960

Ted Williams hits home run in last major league at-bat

On September 28, 1960, at Boston’s Fenway Park, Red Sox star Ted Williams hits a home run in the last at-bat of his 21-year career. Ted Williams once said it was his goal in life to “walk down the street [and have] folks say ‘there goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.’” He ...read more

Westward Expansion
1542

Spanish explorer sails into San Diego Bay

On September 28, 1542, the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrives in San Diego Bay while searching for the Strait of Anian, a mythical all-water route across North America. Cabrillo was not the first to search for a water passage across the North American continent, and ...read more

Art, Literature, and Film History
1901

TV host Ed Sullivan born

On September 28, 1901, Ed Sullivan, who will become the host of the long-running TV variety program The Ed Sullivan Show, is born in New York City. During the peak of its popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, Sullivan’s program showcased a wide range of entertainers, including Elvis ...read more

Inventions & Science
1918

Philadelphia parade exposes thousands to Spanish flu

On September 28, 1918, a Liberty Loan parade in Philadelphia prompts a huge outbreak of Spanish flu in the city. By the time the pandemic ended, an estimated 20 million to 50 million people were dead worldwide. Influenza is a highly contagious virus that attacks the respiratory ...read more

Crime
1988

A cult leader kills one of his followers

Roch Theriault fatally wounds Solange Boislard in Ontario, Canada. Theriault, the leader of the most bizarre and violent cult in Canadian history, often physically abused his followers. Obsessed with anatomy and medicine, Theriault performed crude intestinal surgery on Boislard ...read more

American Revolution
1781

Battle of Yorktown begins

On September 28, 1781, General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia, in the ...read more

World War I
1918

British soldier allegedly spares the life of an injured Adolf Hitler

On September 28, 1918, in an incident that would go down in the lore of World War I history—although the details of the event are still unclear—Private Henry Tandey, a British soldier serving near the French village of Marcoing, reportedly encounters a wounded German soldier and ...read more