Today in history

On Oct. 28, 1726, the original edition of “Gulliver’s Travels,” a satirical novel by Jonathan Swift, was first published in London.

In 1636, the General Court of Massachusetts passed a legislative act establishing Harvard College.

In 1776, the Battle of White Plains was fought during the Revolutionary War, resulting in a limited British victory.

In 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland.

In 1914, Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip, whose assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, sparked World War I, was sentenced in Sarajevo to 20 years’ imprisonment. (He died in 1918.)

In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt rededicated the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary.

In 1940, Italy invaded Greece during World War II.

In 1958, the Roman Catholic patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was elected Pope; he took the name John XXIII. The Samuel Beckett play “Krapp’s Last Tape” premiered in London.

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 1965, Pope Paul VI issued a Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions which, among other things, absolved Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

In 1976, former Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman entered a federal prison camp in Safford, Arizona, to begin serving his sentence for Watergate-related convictions (he was released in April 1978).

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.

Ten years ago: Stacy Peterson, the 23-year-old fourth wife of police sergeant Drew Peterson, went missing in suburban Chicago.

“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss-born French philosopher (1712-1778).