This Day in History
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 1726, the original edition of “Gulliver’s Travels,” a satirical novel by Jonathan Swift, was first published in London.
In 1858, Rowland Hussey Macy opened his first New York store at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan.
In 1922, fascism came to Italy as Benito Mussolini took control of the government.
In 1940, Italy invaded Greece during World War II.
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 2001, the families of people killed in the September 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 2003, firefighters beat back flames on Los Angeles’ doorstep, saving hundreds of homes in the city’s San Fernando Valley from California’s deadliest wildfires in more than a decade.
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.