TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – OCT 28
969 After a prolonged siege, the Byzantines end 300 years of Arab rule in Antioch.
1492 Christopher Columbus discovers Cuba and claims it for Spain
1538 The first university in the New World, the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, is established on Hispaniola
1636 Harvard College, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, is founded in Cambridge, Mass.
1768 Germans and Acadians join French Creoles in their armed revolt against the Spanish governor of New Orleans.
1793 Eli Whitney applies for a patent on the cotton gin, a machine which cleans the tight-clinging seeds from short-staple cotton easily and effectively–a job which was previously done by hand.
1886 The Statue of Liberty, originally named Liberty Enlightening the World, is dedicated at Liberty Island, N. Y., formerly Bedloe’s Island, by President Grover Cleveland
1901 Race riots sparked by Booker T. Washington’s visit to the White House kill 34.
1904 The St. Louis police try a new investigation method: fingerprints.
1914 George Eastman announces the invention of the color photographic process.
1919 Over President Wilson’s veto, Congress passes the National Prohibition Act, or Volstead Act, named after its promoter, Congressman Andrew J. Volstead. It provides enforcement guidelines for the Prohibition Amendment.
1922 Benito Mussolini took control of the government of Italy.
1938 Germany expelled about 17000 Polish Jews and sent them to Poland which refused to take them in.
1949 U.S. President Harry Truman swore in Eugenie Moore Anderson as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark. Anderson was the first woman to hold the post of ambassador.
1960 In a note to the OAS (Organization of American States), the United States charges that Cuba has been receiving substantial quantities of arms and numbers of military technicians” from the Soviet bloc.
1965 Construction completed on St. Louis Arch; at 630 feet (192m), it is the world’s tallest arch.
1976 John D. Erlichman, a former aide to U.S. President Richard Nixon, entered a federal prison camp in Safford, AZ, to begin serving his sentence for Watergate-related convictions.
1982 The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party wins election, giving Spain its first Socialist government since the death of right-wing President Francisco Franco.
1985 John A. Walker Jr. and his son, Michael Lance Walker, pled guilty to charges of spying for the Soviet Union.
1988 Roussel Uclaf, a French manufacturer that produces the abortion pill RU486, announced it would resume distribution of the drug after the government of France demanded it do so.
1994 U.S. President Clinton visited Kuwait and implied that all the troops there would be home by Christmas.
2005 Libby “Scooter” Lewis, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, resigns after being indicted for “outing” CIA agent Valerie Plame.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
