TODAY IN HISTORY

1803

The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase.

1936

Helen Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy, died in Forest Hills, N.Y., at age 70.

1947

The House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence and infiltration in the U.S. motion picture industry.

1977

Three members of the rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, were killed along with three others in the crash of a chartered plane near McComb, Mississippi.

1990

Three members of the rap group 2 Live Crew were acquitted by a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., of violating obscenity laws with an adults-only concert in nearby Hollywood the previous June.

2018

Saudi Arabia announced that U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi had been killed in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul; there was immediate international skepticism over the Saudi account that Khashoggi had died during a “fistfight.”