TODAY IN HISTORY: Earliest possible date for Easter Sunday happened in 1818

In 1638, religious dissident Anne Hutchinson was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for defying Puritan orthodoxy.

In 1765, Britain enacted the Stamp Act of 1765 to raise money from the American colonies. The Act was repealed the following year.

In 1818, Easter Sunday was on March 22, the earliest date it can occur. It will not fall on March 22 again until 2285.

In 1882, U.S. President Chester Alan Arthur signed a measure outlawing polygamy.

In 1885, troops were mobilized across Canada because of the Northwest Rebellion.

In 1894, the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association won the first Stanley Cup championship game. The Triple-A’s beat the visiting Ottawa Capitals 3-1 to take the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association tournament in five games.

In 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumiere gave the first public exhibition of a motion picture using celluloid film. The film was of workers leaving the Lumiere factory in Paris.

In 1907, the first cabs with taxi meters began operating in London.

In 1923, Foster Hewitt broadcast his first hockey game on radio — an intermediate game between Kitchener and Parkdale — from Toronto’s Mutual Street Arena on radio station CFCA.

In 1929, the U.S. Coast Guard sank the Canadian rumrunner “I’m Alone” in the Gulf of Mexico. Prohibition was in force in the U.S., but since the manufacture of liquor was legal in Canada, Ottawa said it could not forbid its export.

In 1931, Actor William Shatner, best known as Captain Kirk in Star Trek, was born in Montreal.

In 1946, Jordan gained independence from British rule.

In 1958, Michael Todd, an American film producer and Elizabeth Taylor’s third husband, and three other people were killed in a plane crash in New Mexico.

In 1979, the National Hockey League and World Hockey Association agreed to merge. Four WHA teams — the Winnipeg Jets, Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques and New England Whalers — joined the NHL for the 1979-80 season.

In 1990, Exxon Valdez captain Joseph Hazelwood was found not guilty of being drunk and reckless after nearly 41 million litres of oil spilled into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in March 1989.

In 2006, the B.C. ferry Queen of the North sank after going off course and hitting a rock about 90 kilometres south of Prince Rupert.