TODAY IN HISTORY: Johnny Cash marries June Carter

In 1692, the first three women charged with witchcraft were sentenced to hang in Salem, Mass.

In 1780, Pennsylvania became the first U.S. state to pass an act to abolish slavery.

In 1875, the Hospital for Sick Children opened in Toronto with six beds and one nurse. A group of women led by Elizabeth McMaster rented an 11-room house for $320 a year and declared the hospital open for “the admission and treatment of children.”

In 1888, parcel post between Canada and the United States was established.

In 1968, Johnny Cash and June Carter were married in Franklin, Ky. He proposed to her on stage at a concert in London, Ont. Both died, four months apart, in 2003.

In 1972, country star Merle Haggard was pardoned by California Governor Ronald Reagan. Haggard had served time in San Quentin in the late 1950s for attempted burglary.

In 1978, new federal election regulations took effect in Canada, ending political party status for the Nude Garden Party and six other fringe groups.

In 2004, nine Hells Angels and associates were found guilty on a variety of charges, including drug trafficking, conspiracy to murder and gangsterism in a year-long trial, one of the longest criminal trials in Canadian history.

In 2005, Ontario became the first Canadian province to pass legislation to ban pit bulls.

In 2009, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in an interview with CNN that "frankly, we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency," in Afghanistan.

In 2016, a Calgary woman who received a legal exemption for doctor-assisted death ended her life in Vancouver with the help of two physicians. She was in the final stages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.