On This Day in:

1636 – Harvard College was founded in Massachusetts. The original name was Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was the first school of higher education in America.

1776 – The Battle of White Plains took place during the American Revolutionary

1793 – Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his cotton gin. The cotton gin would lead to America’s emergence as a power in the global cotton market.

1886 – The Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York Harbor by U.S.

President Cleveland. The statue weighs 225 tons and is 152 feet tall. It was originally known as “Liberty Enlightening the World.”

1904 – The St. Louis Police Department became the first to use fingerprinting.

1919 – The U.S. Congress enacted the Volstead Act, also known as the National Prohibition Act. Prohibition was repealed in 1933 with the passing of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

1922 – Benito Mussolini took control of the Italian government and introduced fascism to Italy.

1936 – The Statue of Liberty was rededicated by U.S. President Roosevelt on its 50th anniversary.

1940 – During World War II, Italy invaded Greece. Italy and Germany occupied the Balkan Peninsula until 1994.

1949 – U.S. President Harry Truman swore in Eugenie Moore Anderson as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark. Anderson was the first woman to hold the post of ambassador.

1958 – Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected Pope. He took the name John XXIII.

1962 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the U.S. that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba following the Cuban Missile Crisis. In response, the United States agreed to dismantle missile stations in Turkey.

1965 – Pope Paul VI issued a decree absolving Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

1965 – The Gateway Arch along the waterfront in St. Louis, MO, was completed.

1976 – John D. Erlichman, a former aide to U.S. President Richard Nixon, entered a federal prison camp in Safford, AZ, to begin serving his sentence for Watergate-related convictions.

1982 – Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev condemned the U.S. for arms buildup.

1983 – The U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution “deeply deploring” the ongoing U.S.-led invasion of Grenada.

1985 – John A. Walker Jr. and his son, Michael Lance Walker, pled guilty to charges of spying for the Soviet Union.

1986 – The centennial of the Statue of Liberty was celebrated in New York.

1988 – Roussel Uclaf, a French manufacturer that produces the abortion pill RU486, announced it would resume distribution of the drug after the government of France demanded it do so.

1990 – Iraq announced that it was halting gasoline rationing following the end of the Gulf War.

1993 – Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, called for a complete blockade of Haiti to force out the military leaders.

1994 – U.S. President Clinton visited Kuwait and implied that all the troops there would be home by Christmas.

1996 – The Dow Jones Industial Average gained a record 337.17 points (or 5%). The day before the Dow had dropped 554.26 points (or 7%).