• Today is Monday, Oct. 22, the 296th day of 2012. There are 70 days left in the year.
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• Today's Highlight in History:
• On Oct. 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered a nationally broadcast address in which he publicly revealed the presence of Soviet-built missile bases under construction in Cuba and announced a quarantine of all offensive military equipment being shipped to the Communist island nation. Kennedy also called upon Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to "eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace."
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• On this date:
• In 1746, Princeton University was first chartered as the College of New Jersey.
• In 1797, French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin (gahr-nayr-AN') made the first parachute descent, landing safely from a height of about 3,000 feet over Paris.
• In 1836, Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first constitutionally elected president of the Republic of Texas.
• In 1883, the original Metropolitan Opera House in New York held its grand opening with a performance of Gounod's "Faust."
• In 1928, Republican presidential nominee Herbert Hoover spoke of the "American system of rugged individualism" in a speech at New York's Madison Square Garden.
• In 1934, bank robber Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd was shot to death by federal agents at a farm in East Liverpool, Ohio.
• In 1953, the Franco-Lao Treaty of Amity and Association effectively made Laos an independent member of the French Union.
• In 1962, the hit comedy album "The First Family," starring comedian-impressionist Vaughn Meader as President John F. Kennedy, was recorded before a studio audience in New York City.
• In 1968, Apollo 7 returned safely from Earth orbit, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.
• In 1979, the U.S. government allowed the deposed Shah of Iran to travel to New York for medical treatment -- a decision that precipitated the Iran hostage crisis.

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