October 28 ...

In 1636 Harvard College was founded in Massachusetts. In 1793 Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his cotton gin (the patent was granted the following March). In 1886 the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Cleveland. In 1919 Congress enacted the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of Prohibition, over President Wilson's veto. In 1922 Benito Mussolini and his Fascist Party took control of the Italian government. In 1936 President 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. In 1962 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the US that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba. In 1980 President Carter and Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan faced off in a nationally broadcast, 90-minute debate in Cleveland.