October 29



1652 - The Massachusetts Bay Colony proclaimed itself to be an independent commonwealth.

1682 - William Penn landed at what is now Chester, PA. He was the founder of Pennsylvania.

1863 - The International Committee of the Red Cross was founded.

1901 - Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of U.S. President McKinley, was electrocuted.


1929 - America's Great Depression began with the crash of the Wall Street stock market.

1940 - The first peacetime military draft began in the U.S.


1956 - Israel invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula during the Suez Canal Crisis.

1956 - "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" premiered on NBC. The show replaced "The Camel News Caravan."

1959 - General Mills became the first corporation to use close-circuit television.

1960 - Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) won his first professional fight.

1966 - The National Organization for Women was founded.

1969 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered an immediate end to all school segregation.




1990 - The U.N. Security Council voted to hold Saddam Hussein's regime liable for human rights abuses and war damages during its occupation of Kuwait.

1991 - The U.S. Galileo spacecraft became the first to visit an asteroid (Gaspra).


1992 - Depo Provera, a contraceptive, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

1995 - Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers became the NFL's career leader in receiving yards with 14,040 yards.

1998 - South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission condemned both apartheid and violence committed by the African National Congress.


1998 - The oldest known copy of Archimedes' work sold for $2 million at a New York auction.

2001 - KTLA broadcasted the first coast to coast HDTV network telecast.

2014 - The smartwatch Microsoft Band was released.