Wednesday’s History: October 28

Today, Oct. 28, in history included Lady Liberty dedicated, a football broadcast countrywide, the St. Louis Arch is completed, and a powerful cyclone hits India, according to history.com.

France gave a friendship gift named "Liberty Enlightening the World" to the U.S. in 1886 and it was dedicated on this date by President Grover Cleveland.

French historian Edouard de Laboulaye proposed the statue commemorating the Franco-American alliance during the American Revolution. The 151-foot statue was designed by Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi and the steel supports were designed by Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel.

New York Bedloe's Island, renamed Liberty Island, was approved by Congress in 1877. The statue was completed in France, and Americans put the cornerstone down for the pedestal in New York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty arrived in the U.S. in June 1885 in 200 cases and was reassembled in 1886 to be dedicated with both French and American dignitaries in attendance.

American poet Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colussus," which is inscribed on the pedestal. It reads: "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. / I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Ellis Island, the chief entry station in 1892, welcomed 12 million immigrants for 32 years. The Statue of Liberty became a national monument in 1924. In the '80s, "she" was restored.

From Chicago's Stagg Field in 1922, Chicago Maroons versus Princeton Tigers was the first college football game heard nationwide on the radio.

Telephone lines carried the match-up with Princeton wins a very close game. Princeton with an early lead, Chicago scores three touchdowns. Then in the fourth, Princeton scores two more touchdowns. Tigers went 8-0 in the season.

The Gateway Arch, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, commemorates President Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and St. Louis' westward expansion.

The Arch was designed by Finnish-born, American-educated Eero Saarinen, who won a nationwide competition in 1947-48. In 1961, he died of a brain tumor.

The Gateway Arch construction began in 1963 and was completed in 1965, costing less than $15 million. The 630-foot structure's foundation is 60 feet underground to withstand earthquakes and high winds. The Arch also includes the Museum of Westward Expansion and the Old Courthouse of St. Louis.

In 1999, Cyclone O5B was a tropical disturbance in the South China Sea. Oct. 24 it was a tropical depression, becoming a cyclone on the 27th. Winds at 155 mph, compares to a Category 5 hurricane, hit Orissa in India, stalls, then drifts south hitting the coast on the 31st.

Declared as the worst flooding in 100 years, the cyclone caused severe crop damage and killed hundreds of thousands of livestock. More than 10,000 people died and thousands were reported missing, with 1 million becoming homeless.