28 April 1977: death of Anthony Coburn, who wrote An Unearthly Child (1963) and the never-produced story The Masters of Luxor.
i) broadcast anniversaries
28 April 1973: broadcast of fourth episode of Planet of the Daleks. The Doctor and Jo are reunited, and the Thals disagree about how to tackle the Daleks.
28 April 2007: broadcast of Evolution of the Daleks. The Daleks’ experiments are destroyed by the Doctor and Dalek Caan escapes.
ii) date specified in canon
28 April 2008: Martha Jones and Sarah Jane Smith are killed on the Moon, in the negated timeline in Turn Left (2008)
My whole family loves Cressida Cowell’s How to Tame Your Dragon series. First, we read them aloud to our dragon-loving 7 yr old, who couldn’t get enough. Then I found myself reading three books ahead (in an afternoon; they’re short) because they are just that amusing. Fast-paced and funny. Ms Cowell studied English at Oxford. Her father is a Viscount. There be dragons and subtext here!
Absolutely not funny and not on your list, but beautifully written and unforgettable, and the only book I’ve consistently recommended to anyone all year long: We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.