TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Thursday, Oct. 28.
Today’s highlight:
On Oct. 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland.
On this date:
In 1636, the General Court of Massachusetts passed a legislative act establishing Harvard College.
In 1858, Rowland Hussey Macy opened his first New York store at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan.
In 1914, medical researcher Jonas Salk, who developed the first successful polio vaccine, was born in New York.
In 1922, fascism came to Italy as Benito Mussolini took control of the government.
In 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the United States that he had ordered the dismantling of missile bases in Cuba; in return, the U.S. secretly agreed to remove nuclear missiles from U.S. installations in Turkey.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter and Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan faced off in a nationally broadcast, 90-minute debate in Cleveland.
In 1991, what became known as “The Perfect Storm” began forming hundreds of miles east of Nova Scotia; lost at sea during the storm were the six crew members of the Andrea Gail, a swordfishing boat from Gloucester, Massachusetts.
In 1996, Richard Jewell, cleared of committing the Olympic park bombing, held a news conference in Atlanta in which he thanked his mother for standing by him and lashed out at reporters and investigators who’d depicted him as the bomber, who turned out to be Eric Rudolph.
In 2001, the families of people killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack gathered in New York for a memorial service filled with prayer and song.
In 2002, American diplomat Laurence Foley was assassinated in front of his house in Amman, Jordan, in the first such attack on a U.S. diplomat in decades. A student flunking out of the University of Arizona nursing school shot three of his professors to death, then killed himself.
In 2012, airlines canceled more than 7,000 flights in advance of Hurricane Sandy, transit systems in New York, Philadelphia and Washington were shut down, and forecasters warned the New York area could see an 11-foot wall of water.
In 2013, Penn State said it would pay $59.7 million to 26 young men over claims of child sexual abuse at the hands of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
Ten years ago: NBA Commissioner David Stern canceled all NBA games through November after labor negotiations broke down for the second time in a week.