By The Associated Press

Today in History

Today is Tuesday, March 10, the 70th day of 2020. There are 296 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 10, 1985, Konstantin U. Chernenko, who was the Soviet Union’s leader for 13 months, died at age 73; he was succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev.

On this date:

In 1496, Christopher Columbus concluded his second visit to the Western Hemisphere as he left Hispaniola for Spain.

In 1848, the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War.

In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln assigned Ulysses S. Grant, who had just received his commission as lieutenant-general, to the command of the Armies of the United States.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant, Thomas Watson, heard Bell say over his experimental telephone: “Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you” from the next room of Bell’s Boston laboratory.

In 1906, about 1,100 miners in northern France were killed by a coal-dust explosion.

In 1913, former slave, abolitionist and Underground Railroad “conductor” Harriet Tubman died in Auburn, New York; she was in her 90s.

In 1933, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake centered off Long Beach, California, resulted in 120 deaths.

In 1969, James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis, Tennessee (on his 41st birthday) to assassinating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (Ray later repudiated that plea, maintaining his innocence until his death.)

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

In 1988, prior to the 50th anniversary of the Anschluss, Austrian President Kurt Waldheim apologized on his country’s behalf for atrocities committed by Austrian Nazis.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II approved sainthood for Katharine Drexel, a Philadelphia socialite who had taken a vow of poverty and devoted her fortune to helping poor blacks and American Indians. (Drexel, who died in 1955, was canonized in October 2000.)

In 2004, teenage sniper Lee Boyd Malvo was sentenced in Chesapeake, Virginia, to life in prison for his role in the October 2002 killing rampage in the Washington, D.C., area that left 10 people dead. (Malvo, 19, was sentenced a day after sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad was given the death penalty.)

Ten years ago: President Barack Obama denounced waste, inefficiency and downright fraud in the government’s health care system as he sought to rally public support for his revamped overhaul plan during a rally in suburban St. Louis. About 200 women who’d flown airplanes during World War II as Women Airforce Service Pilots were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Actor Corey Haim died in Burbank, California, at age 38.

Five years ago: A U.S. Army helicopter crashed in dense fog during a training exercise at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, killing seven