On This Day, May 28: Phil Hartman killed by wife

On this date in history:

In 1798, the U.S. Congress empowered President John Adams to recruit an American army of 10,000 volunteers.

In 1892, the Sierra Club was founded by naturalist John Muir.

In 1934, the Dionne sisters, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile, Marie and Annette, first documented set of quintuplets to survive, were born near Callander, Ontario, and soon became world-famous. Emilie died in 1954, Marie in 1970 and Yvonne in 2001.

In 1961, Amnesty International was founded in London by lawyer Peter Berenson.

File Photo by Roger L. Wollenberg/UPI

In 1977, a flash fire swept through a nightclub in Southgate, Ky., killing 162 people and injuring 30.

In 1987, West German Mathias Rust, 19, flew a single-engine plane from Finland through Soviet radar and landed beside the Kremlin in Moscow. Three days later, the Soviet defense minister and his deputy were fired.

In 1991, Ethiopian rebels seized the presidential palace and tightened their control of the capital of Addis Ababa, effectively wresting power from a crumbling Marxist government that ruled their country with an iron hand for 17 years.

In 1998, digitized pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope seemed to show an image of a planet outside the solar system. The planet circled two stars in the constellation Taurus.

In 1998, actor and comedian Phil Hartman, known for his roles on Saturday Night Live and News Radio, was killed by his wife, Brynn Hartman. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office determined Brynn Hartman had cocaine, alcohol and an anti-depressant drug in her system at the time of the murder-suicide.

In 2000, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori easily won a runoff election but nationwide demonstrations against him continued. He resigned in September.

File Photo by Ricardo Watson/UPI

In 2002, NASA said the Mars Odyssey found evidence of ice on Mars. "We were hopeful that we could find evidence of ice, but what we have found is much more ice than we ever expected," a scientist said.

In 2003, President George W. Bush signed into law his modified tax-reduction plan, which lowered the tax rate for upper- and middle-income taxpayers and trimmed rates on capital gains and dividends.

In 2008, Nepal's newly elected Constituent Assembly voted to dissolve the 239-year-old monarchy and form a republic, officially ending the reign of King Gyanendra.

In 2014, author-poet-activist Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) died in Winston-Salem, N.C. U.S. President Barack Obama called Angelou, who was 86, "one of the brightest lights of our time."

In 2015, former U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was indicted by a federal grand jury for violating banking laws in an effort to pay off a person who accused the former congressman of "past misconduct." Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in prison on April 27, 2016.

In 2017, flooding from a heavy monsoon caused landslides in Sri Lanka, killing up to 224 people.