The first university in the New World, Universidad Santó Tomas de Aquino, was founded in what is now the Dominican Republic in 1538. It closed in 1832. The college that would become Harvard University was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1636. The first train in Spain, between Barcelona and Mataró, opened in 1848. No clue whether that's on a plain or if there was rain. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York harbour in 1886. Mussolini and the Fascists (sounds almost like a band) took over the Italian government in 1922.
Born today: Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), Elsa Lanchester (1902-1986), Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), Cleo Laine (1927), Joan Plowright (1929), David Dimbleby (1938), the Anti-Chri, er, Bill Gates (1955), Mahmoud Ahmedinejad (1956) and Julia Roberts (1967).
It is Oxi Day in Greece.
