Today in history

Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his cotton gin.

In 1793

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

In 1886

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

In 1922

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

In 1955 In 1962

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

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

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.

Also in 2000

American diplomat Laurence Foley was assassinated in front of his house in Amman, Jordan, in

In 2002

the first such attack on a U.S. diplomat in decades.

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 2003

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.

In 2016