Births on January 28

Hidetsugu Yagi, Japanese engineer and academic (d. 1976)

Hidetsugu Yagi (八木 秀次, Yagi Hidetsugu, January 28, 1886 – January 19, 1976) was a Japanese electrical engineer from Osaka, Japan. When working at Tohoku University, he wrote several articles that introduced a new antenna designed by his colleague Shintaro Uda to the English-speaking world.

The Yagi antenna, patented in 1926, allows directional communication using electromagnetic waves, and is now installed on millions of houses throughout the world for radio and television reception. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to introduce a wireless power transmission system. He participated in establishing the Chiba Institute of Technology.He was the fourth president of Osaka University from February 1946 to December 1946.In 1942, he became Director of the Industrial Sciences Faculty of the Tokyo University, in 1944 he became General Director of the Technology Institute, and in 1946 also General Director of the Osaka Imperial University. He was decorated with the Medal of Honor with Blue Ribbon Award in 1951, with the Order of Culture in 1956, and posthumously with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun in 1976.