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 Grover Cleveland.

In 1919, Congress enacted the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of Prohibition, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.

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

In 1936, President Franklin 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 United States that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter and Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan faced off in a nationally broadcast, 90-minute debate in Cleveland.

In 1996, Richard Jewell, cleared of committing the Olympic park bombing, held a news conference in Atlanta in which he thanked his mother for standing by him and lashed out at reporters and investigators who had depicted him as the bomber. Comedian Morey Amsterdam died in Los Angeles at age 81.