TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: OCT 28
0312 Constantine the Great defeats Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius at the Mulvian Bridge.
0969 After a prolonged siege, the Byzantines end 300 years of Arab rule in Antioch.
1216 Henry III of England is crowned.
1492 Christopher Columbus sights Cuba and claims it for Spain under the name “Juana”
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.
1790 New York gives up claims to Vermont for $30,000
1793 Eli Whitney applied for a patent for the cotton gin.
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.
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.
1924 Miner M.de Bruin discovers the infant fossil skull, “Taung child” in a lime quarry in Taung, South Africa. Paleoanthropologist Raymond Dart identifies the fossil as a new hominin species, Australopithecus africanus.
1938 Germany expels Polish jews. Germany expelled about 17000 Polish Jews and sent them to Poland which refused to take them in.
1962 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders Soviet missiles removed from Cuba, ending the Cuban Missile Crisis.
1965 Pope Paul VI issued a decree absolving Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
1965 Construction completed on St. Louis Arch; at 630 feet (192m), it is the world’s tallest arch.
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.
2005 Libby “Scooter” Lewis, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, resigns after being indicted for “outing” CIA agent Valerie Plame.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
