Friday, October 28

This Day In History

• 1636   Harvard College was founded.
  
• 1793   Eli Whitney applied for a patent for the cotton gin.
  
• 1886   An emblem of Franco-American unity, the Statue of Liberty, was presented to the American people by the French and unveiled this day. The Statue of Liberty, at Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor, is the work of French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, who called it "Liberty Enlightening the World". Bartholdi was present at the dedication presided over by U.S. President Grover Cleveland.
  
• 1919   Congress enacted the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of Prohibition, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.
  
• 1922   Fascism came to Italy as Benito Mussolini took control of the government.
  
• 1940   Italy invaded Greece during World War II.
  
• 1958   The Roman Catholic patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was elected pope, taking the name John XXIII.
  
• 1962   Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the United States that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
  
• 1965   Pope Paul VI issued a decree absolving Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
  
• 1976   Former Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman entered a federal prison camp in Safford, Ariz., to begin serving his sentence for Watergate-related convictions.
  
• 1980   Republican nominee Ronald Reagan asked voters during a debate with President Jimmy Carter in Cleveland ''are you better off than you were four years ago?''
  
• 2002   American diplomat Laurence Foley was assassinated in front of his house in Amman, Jordan.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1902   Elsa Lanchester (Elizabeth Sullivan) (actress)
  
• 1914   Dr. Jonas Salk (medical researcher: Salk polio vaccine; AIDS research; died June 23, 1995)
  
• 1915   Dody Goodman (comedienne, actress)
  
• 1932   Suzy Parker (Cecelia Anne Renee Parker) (model, actress: The Interns, The Best of Everything, Ten North Frederick, Funny Face; died May 3, 2003)
  
• 1944   Dennis Franz (Schlachta) (Emmy Award-winning actor: N.Y.P.D. Blue [1995-1996, 1996-1997, 1998-1999]; Nasty Boys, Hill Street Blues, Chicago Story, Beverly Hills Buntz, The Bay City Blues, Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Body Double, Psycho 2, Dressed to Kill)