On this day...

August 28: Feast of the Assumption (Julian calendar)

• 1830 – Tom Thumb (replica pictured), the first American-built steam locomotive, engaged in an impromptu race against a horse-drawn car in Maryland.
• 1914 – In the first naval battle of the First World War, British ships defeated the German fleet in the Heligoland Bight area of the North Sea.
• 1924 – An unsuccessful insurrection against Soviet rule in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, known as the August Uprising, began.
• 1937 – Toyota Motors, now the world's largest automobile manufacturer, was spun off from Toyota Industries as an independent company.
• 1963 – The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, the world's longest floating bridge, opened across Lake Washington in Washington, US.