Who was born on this date?

1492 - Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba and claimed it in the name of Spain.

1628 - After being besieged for months, the Huguenots at La Rochelle capitulated to troops of the French crown under Cardinal Richelieu.

1636 - The Massachusetts General Court gave 400 pounds to support a school or college. As a result Harvard University of Cambridge, Massachusetts was founded.

1746 - The Peruvian cities of Lima and Callao were demolished by an earthquake, killing at least 18,000.

1870 - In the Franco-Prussian War, Strasbourg surrendered to Prussian forces.

1886 - The Statue of Liberty, a gift from France designed by Auguste Bartholdi, was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland.

1891 - An earthquake struck the Niphon Islands in Japan, killing 10,000 people and leaving at least 300,000 homeless.

1904 - The St. Louis, Missouri Police Department, tingerprinting was first used.

1918 - The Czechoslovak state came into being when the Prague national committee took over land upon the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. The Republic was declared in November 1918 under President Masaryk.

1919 - The Volstead Prohibition Act was passed by the United States Congress which prohibited the sale of drink containing more than one half of one percent of alcohol.

1922 - Fascist blackshirts began a march on Rome from Naples which led two days later to the formation of a government led by Benito Mussolini.

1922 - WEAF in New York broadcast the first collegiate football game to be heard across the United States. Princeton played against the University of Chicago at Stagg Field in Chicago, Illinois. Telephone lines transmitted the game to New York City, where the radio transmission started.

1924 - Less than 20 people paid to see an exhibition ballgame between the Chicago White Sox and the New York Giants, in Dublin, Ireland. Newspapers reported attendance was off because church services were held at the time. The Sox, won 8-4.

1940 - The Greek people celebrated, as their resistance and military turned back Mussolini’s troops. Greece’s borders were now closed to Nazi supporters. The event is still celebrated throughout Greece as Ohi (No!) Day.

1943 - The Court of Appeal in London ruled that money a housewife saves from the housekeeping belongs to her husband.

1950 - After 20 years, Jack Benny moved his well-known radio show to television. CBS-TV audiences go to see, at 7:30 p.m., stingy, vain Benny with his violin, old fashioned Maxwell car, and his basement vault in black and white. Eventually, Jack Benny, wife Mary Livingstone, and his friends Eddy "Rochester" Anderson, Don Wilson and Dennis Day were seen in color. The show stayed on television for twenty-seven years.

1954 - The modern version of the Bizet opera Carmen Jones, starring Harry Belefonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, Olga James, and Brock Peters, opened in theaters. The film won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Musical/Comedy, and Dandridge was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. A small role was held by young actress Diahann Carroll.

1955 - A kid from Lubbock, Texas opened for Marty Robbins and Elvis Presley. The audience included young Scott Davis who would later become a superstar called Mac Davis. Buddy Holly was the kid who opened the concert.

1956 - The primate of Poland, Cardinal Wyszynski, was released following the election of the new politburo under M. Gomulka. He had been imprisoned since September 1953.

1958 - Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, was elected Pope and took the title John XXIII.

1961 - London record store owner, Brian Epstein, was asked by a customer for the record, "My Bonnie", by The Silver Beatles. He didn’t have it so he went to the Cavern Club to see the group. In just a few days, he signed to manage them, renaming them The Beatles.

1961 - At the former New York World's Fair site, groundbreaking ceremonies were held for Municipal Stadium which was later renamed Shea Stadium, after New York Commissioner, William A. Shea.

1962 - The Cuban missile crisis effectively ended when Soviet leader Khrushchev announced that its missiles would be dismantled and returned to the USSR. President Kennedy immediately replied that the U.S. would lift its blockade of Cuba.

1964 - Defensive end Jim Marshall of the Minnesota Vikings carried the ball 60 yards in the wrong direction into the end zone, scoring a safety for the San Francisco 49ers. Nevertheless, Minnesota won 27-22.

1971 - By a vote of 356-244, the British House of Commons voted in favor of joining the European Economic Community.

1973 - In his final racing appearance, Secretariat raced into history when he won the Canadian International Stakes in Toronto.

1974 - On "Rhoda" the CBS spin-off of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," Rhoda Morgenstern made television history as she married Joe Girard on.

1979 - Billy Martin, manager of the Yankees, was given a second chance and was re-hired, warned that he must conduct himself in a professional, lawful manner. On this date, he allegedly punched out a marshmallow salesman in the lobby of L'Hotel de France in Bloomington, Minnesota. Martin argued that he was acting in self-defense, but was replaced as Yankee manager by Dick Howser.

1980 - Annette Funicello, Cubby O’Brien, Tommy Cole, Sherry Alberoni and Dickie Dodd joined fellow Mouseketeers wearing black ears and white shirts on a Burbank, California sound stage to celebrated the 25th anniversary of the "Mickey Mouse Club".

Do you remember the five special events each week?

Fun with Music Day on Monday

Guest Star Day on Tuesday

Anything Can Happen Day on Wednesday

Circus Day on Thursday

Talent Roundup Day on Friday.

1981 - A Soviet Whiskey-class submarine armed with nuclear weapons ran aground in Swedish waters. The vessel was released on November 6 after protests to the USSR.

1982 - The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, led by Felipe Gonzalez, won a landslide victory in a general election.

1986 - The Neiman-Marcus catalogue offered a unique holiday gift, a 100-year subscription to "The Wall Street Journal" for only $6,000. It was a $5,400 savings over the regular 100-year rate.

1994 - Stargate, starring Kurt Russell and James Spader, opened in United States movie theaters.

1995 - 289 people died and 270 were injured when a crowded underground railway train caught fire between the Ulduz and Narimanov underground stations in Azerbaijan's capital Baku.

1996 - The people of Malta rejected European Union membership in an upset election victory by the Labor Party; its leader, Alfred Sant, was sworn in as prime minister.

1996 - The people of Malta rejected European Union membership in an upset election victory by the Labor Party; its leader, Alfred Sant, was sworn in as prime minister.

1996 - Steve MacDonald, 24, became the first blind man to paddle a canoe round the British mainland.