On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a U.S. patent for his telephone.

Ten years ago

The Bush administration drew a hard line on Iran, warning of “meaningful consequences” if the Islamic government did not back away from an international confrontation over its disputed nuclear program.

Five years ago

Reversing course, President Barack Obama approved the resumption of military trials at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ending a two-year ban. Charlie Sheen was fired from the sitcom “Two and a Half Men” by Warner Bros. Television following repeated misbehavior and weeks of the actor’s angry, often-manic media campaign against his studio bosses.

One year ago

Nigeria’s home-grown Boko Haram Islamic extremists pledged formal allegiance to the Islamic State group as they battled a multinational force that had dislodged them from a number of towns in the north. Izola Ware Curry, who had stabbed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the chest with a letter opener at a Harlem book signing in 1958, died at a nursing home in Queens, New York, at age 98.

— By The Associated Press