TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1804, the United States acquired control of the Louisiana Territory in a deal with France.

In 1842, Queen’s University was founded in Kingston, Ont.

In 1871, the first legislative council of Manitoba opened.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell conducted the first successful test of the telephone in Boston. Bell told his assistant, “Come here, Watson. I need you.” Bell had patented the device a month earlier.

In 1880, the Salvation Army arrived in the United States from England.

In 1910, Prince Rupert, B.C., was incorporated as a city.

In 1947, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King announced that the Canadian garrison was withdrawing from Germany.

In 1948, Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk committed suicide by jumping out a window at the Foreign Office in Prague.

In 1969, James Earl Ray, who had confessed to the April, 1968 shooting death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was sentenced in Memphis to 99 years in prison. Ray later recanted but died in prison in 1998.

In 1974, a former Japanese officer surrendered on Lubang Island after hiding in the Philippine jungle for 30 years. Lieutenant Hiroo Onada did not know the Second World War had ended.

In 1980, “Scarsdale Diet” author Dr. Herman Tarnower was shot to death at his home in Purchase, N.Y. Tarnower’s former lover, Jean Harris, was convicted of his murder. She served nearly 12 years in prison before being released in January, 1993.