It happened on… October 28

The NBA hires Dee Kantner and Violet Palmer as full-time referees. They become the first women to referee in a major professional men’s league in the United States. Kantner, 37, had been supervising officials for the WNBA, founded a year earlier, and Palmer, 33, had refereed there since its first season. The decision draws mixed reactions.

The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Blackhawks 4–2 at Chicago Stadium, extending their NHL record to 10 consecutive wins to start the season. Wendel Clark scored two goals, and goaltender Félix Potvin made 46 saves. The streak ended two nights later in Montreal, where the Canadiens defeated the Leafs 5–2.

Freshly admitted to the NHL after their stint in the World Hockey Association, the Quebec Nordiques host the Montreal Canadiens for the first time at the Colisée and win 5-4. Jamie Hislop scores the game-winning goal with less than five minutes remaining in regulation. This marks the beginning of the Battle of Quebec, one of hockey’s most passionate rivalries.

Bobby Orr, a native of Parry Sound, Ontario, scored the 270th and final goal of his NHL career—not with Boston, but with the Chicago Blackhawks—late in a 7-2 loss to the Detroit Red Wings. Plagued by knee injuries, the defenseman who revolutionized his position was forced to retire shortly thereafter, at just 30 years old.

Ernest Hemingway receives the Nobel Prize in Literature. The American author of The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea—all of which won the Pulitzer Prize—transformed the art of the novel. His stripped-down, deceptively simple prose has influenced generations of writers.

The Paris Olympic Games finally come to an end after more than five months. Held as part of the World’s Fair, they were so poorly organized that many competitors did not even realize they were participating in the Games. They made history nonetheless: for the first time, women competed in sailing, tennis, and golf.

U.S. President Grover Cleveland officially dedicates the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe’s Island in Upper New York Bay. The colossal monument is a gift from the French people to the American people. The small island on which the famous statue stands will later be renamed Liberty Island in its honor.

Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is published in London anonymously. Presented as the memoirs of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship’s surgeon turned captain, the book uses Lilliputians and giants to satirize the politics and foibles of his time. It becomes a cornerstone of English literature and contributes to the birth of the modern novel.

Harvard, the first college in the American colonies, is founded by a vote of the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Contrary to popular belief—and a famous statue—John Harvard was not its founder. This young minister was its first major benefactor: he bequeathed half of his estate and more than 400 pounds to the college. The college took his name in 1639.

Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba during his first voyage across the Atlantic. Convinced that he had reached Asia, he quickly came to believe that Cuba was not an island but rather the continent of Cathay—the name by which China was known in Europe at the time. He clung to this idea even though he had not yet seen any sign of its legendary great cities.