Today in history

In 1793 Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his cotton gin.

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

In 1922 fascism came to Italy as Benito Mussolini took control of the government.

In 1955 Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp. co-founder and chairman, was born William Henry Gates III in Seattle.

In 1962 the Cuban missile crisis eased as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said his government would pull its nuclear missiles out of Cuba.

In 2000 the party of moderate Ibrahim Rugova won Kosovo’s municipal elections.

Also in 2000 David Trimble, leader of Northern Ireland’s biggest Protestant party, narrowly won a crucial party battle, keeping alive the province’s powersharing government.

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.

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. Also in

2003 the Senate confirmed Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2016 the FBI rattled the presidential race by announcing it was again making inquiries about emails that might be related to candidate Hillary Clinton’s private server; less than two weeks later Clinton lost to Donald Trump.