more events on October 28
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2007
Argentina elects its first woman president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
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2005
Libby "Scooter" Lewis, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, resigns after being indicted for "outing" CIA agent Valerie Plame.
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1982
The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party wins election, giving Spain its first Socialist government since the death of right-wing President Francisco Franco.
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1972
Brad Paisley, country / Southern rock singer, songwriter, musician ("I’m Gonna Miss Her," "Letter to Me"); his many awards include the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year 2010.
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1971
Britain launches the satellite Prospero into orbit, using a Black Arrow carrier rocket; this is the first and so far (2013) only British satellite launched by a British rocket.
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1967
John Romero, game designer, developer; co-founded id Software (Doom, Quake).
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Julia Roberts, actress (Pretty Woman, Steel Magnolias; won Academy Award for Best Actress in Erin Brockovich).
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Sophie, Hereditary Princess of Liechtenstein.
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1965
Construction completed on St. Louis Arch; at 630 feet (192m), it is the world’s tallest arch.
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1962
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders Soviet missiles removed from Cuba, ending the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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1960
In a note to the OAS (Organization of American States), the United States charges that Cuba has been receiving substantial quantities of arms and numbers of military technicians" from the Soviet bloc.
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1955
William "Bill" Gates, the chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest software firm.
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1951
Joe R. Lansdale, author ("Hap and Leonard" novel series, "Bubba Ho-Tep"); won World Horror Convention Grand Master Award 2007.
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1949
Bruce Jenner, athlete, actor; won gold medal in the Decathlon at the Summer Olympics in Montreal (1976).
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1944
Anton Schlecker, founder of the Schlecker Company, which operated retail stores across Europe.
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The first B-29 Superfortress bomber mission flies from the airfields in the Mariana Islands in a strike against the Japanese base at Truk.
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1940
Italy invades Greece, launching six divisions on four fronts from occupied Albania.
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1938
Anne Perry, an author of historical detective fiction, she was herself convicted at age 15 of aiding in the murder of a friend’s mother in New Zealand; their crime was the basis for the 1994 film Heavenly Creatures.
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1936
Charlie Daniels, country / Southern rock singer, songwriter, musician ("The Devil Went Down to Georgia").
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1927
Pan American Airways launches the first scheduled international flight.
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1926
Bowie Kuhn, Commissioner of Major League Baseball (1969–1984).
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1919
Over President Wilson’s veto, Congress passes the National Prohibition Act, or Volstead Act, named after its promoter, Congressman Andrew J. Volstead. It provides enforcement guidelines for the Prohibition Amendment.
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1914
Jonas Salk, U.S. scientist who developed the first vaccine against polio.
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George Eastman announces the invention of the color photographic process.
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The German cruiser Emden, disguised as a British ship, steams into Penang Harbor near Malaya and sinks the Russian light cruiser Zhemchug.
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1912
Richard Doll, English epidemiologist who established a link between tobacco smoke and cancer.
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1909
Francis Bacon, English artist who painted expressionist portraits.
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1904
The St. Louis police try a new investigation method: fingerprints.
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1903
Evelyn Waugh, English novelist who wrote Decline and Fall and Brideshead Revisited.
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1901
Race riots sparked by Booker T. Washington’s visit to the White House kill 34.
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1896
Howard Hansen, composer, director of the Eastman School of music.
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1886
The Statue of Liberty, originally named Liberty Enlightening the World, is dedicated at Liberty Island, N. Y., formerly Bedloe’s Island, by President Grover Cleveland
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1875
Gilbert Grosvenor, editor, turned the National Geographic Society’s irregularly published pamphlet into a periodical with a circulation of nearly two million.
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1863
In a rare night attack, Confederates under Gen. James Longstreet attack a Federal force near Chattanooga, Tennessee, hoping to cut their supply line, the "cracker line." They fail.
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1793
Eli Whitney applies for a patent on the cotton gin, a machine which cleans the tight-clinging seeds from short-staple cotton easily and effectively–a job which was previously done by hand.
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1768
Germans and Acadians join French Creoles in their armed revolt against the Spanish governor of New Orleans.
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1636
Harvard College, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, is founded in Cambridge, Mass.
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1628
After a fifteen-month siege, the Huguenot town of La Rochelle surrenders to royal forces.
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1216
Henry III of England is crowned.
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969
After a prolonged siege, the Byzantines end 300 years of Arab rule in Antioch.
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312
Constantine the Great defeats Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius at the Mulvian Bridge.