UPI Almanac for Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014

Today is Tuesday, Oct. 28, the 301st day of 2014 with 64 to follow.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Jupiter and Mercury. The evening stars are Mars, Neptune, Saturn Uranus and Venus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus in 1466; rifle maker Eliphalet Remington in 1793; Russian writer Ivan Turgenev in 1818; eight-time Academy Award-winning costumer Edith Head in 1897; actor Elsa Lanchester in 1902; English novelist Evelyn Waugh in 1903; Dr. Jonas Salk, a developer of the polio vaccine, in 1914; former baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn in 1926; country musician Charlie Daniels in 1936 (age 78); basketball Hall of Fame member Lenny Wilkens in 1937 (age 77); actors Jane Alexander in 1939 (age 75) and Dennis Franz in 1944 (age 70); rock singer Wayne Fontana in 1945 (age 69); singer/actor Telma Hopkins in 1948 (age 66); Olympic decathlon champion Bruce Jenner in 1949 (age 65); Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in 1955 (age 59); former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 1956 (age 58); actors Annie Potts in 1952 (age 62), Lauren Holly in 1963 (age 51), Jami Gertz in 1965 (age 49), Andy Richter in 1966 (age 48), Julia Roberts in 1967 (age 47) and Joaquin Phoenix in 1974 (age 40).

On this date in history:

In 1636, Harvard College, now Harvard University, was founded in Massachusetts.

In 1846, the pioneering Donner Party of 90 people set out from Springfield, Ill., on what became a tragic journey to California.

In 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States, was dedicated in New York Harbor by U.S. President Grover Cleveland.

In 1919, the U.S. Congress passed the Volstead Act, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, enforcing the constitutional amendment prohibiting the use of alcoholic beverages.

In 1962, Russian chief Nikita Khrushchev announced that all Soviet offensive missiles would be removed from Cuba.

In 1985, the leader of the so-called Walker family spy ring, John A. Walker Jr., pleaded guilty to giving U.S. Navy secrets to the Soviet Union. (Walker died in a federal prison in August 2014.)

In 1989, the Oakland A's wrapped up an earthquake-delayed sweep of the World Series over the San Francisco Giants.

In 2007, Cristina Fernandez became the first woman to be elected president of Argentina.

In 2010, China announced it had built what experts said was the world's fastest supercomputer, capable of a sustained performance 40 percent greater than the previous record holder built in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

In 2012, the San Francisco Giants defeated the Detroit Tigers 4-3 in 10 innings to sweep the World Series.

In 2013, Conrad Murray, the cardiologist convicted of involuntary manslaughter in pop star Michael Jackson's death, was released from the Los Angeles County jail after serving two years of a four-year sentence

A thought for the day: "Gay people have a different role than other minority groups. ... Very few black kids have ever had to worry about telling their parents that they were black." -- Barney Frank