October 29

312 – Constantine the Great enters Rome after his victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and stages a grand adventus in the city.

1792 – Mount Hood, Oregon is named after Samuel, 1st Viscount Hood by Lt. William E. Broughton on sighting the mountain.

1863 – 18 countries meet in Geneva and agree to form the International Red Cross, reversing the Swiss Colors as the logo of the organization in honor of the nation.

1888 – The Convention of Constantinople is signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.

1901 – Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley, is executed by electrocution.

1914 – The Ottoman Empire enters World War I on the side of Germany by staging naval raids in the Black Sea against Russian ports, with ships bought and crewed by Germans.

1922 – King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy appoints Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister.

1929 – The New York Stock Exchange crashes again, dropping an additional 30.57 points (11.73%) , for a total drop of 23% in 2 days.

1942 – Leading clergymen and political figures in the United Kingdom hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews.

1953 – British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines Flight 304, a Douglas DC-6, crashes near San Francisco killing all 19 passengers and crew aboard.

1960 – An Arctic-Pacific Company, Curtiss C-46 Commando, chartered to  carry the California Polytechnic university Mustangs football team, crashes on takeoff in Toledo, Ohio, killing 26 of the 48 passengers and crew aboard.

1969 – The first ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

1972 – The 3 surviving perpetrators of the Munich Olympic massacre are released from prison in exchange for the hostages of hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615.

1980 – The secret demonstration flight of a C-130 aircraft, specially modified for extremely short landing and takeoff, to be used in a second Iran hostage crisis rescue attempt, ends in a crash landing, with no casualties, at Eglin Air Force Base’s Duke Field, Florida, leading to cancellation of Operation Credible Sport.

1994 – Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House, and is later convicted of trying to kill U.S. President Bill Clinton.

1998 – Space Shuttle mission STS-95 blasts off with 77-year-old John Glenn on board Shuttle Discovery, making him the oldest person to go into space, at the time, and the only Mission Mercury astronaut to fly on a Shuttle.

2004 – The news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a video in which the terrorist Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and references the 2004 U.S. presidential election.

2012 – Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast of the United States at category 3 power, killing 148 people and causing $70 billion in damage.