Today is Friday, March 10, the 69th day of 2017. There are 296 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On March 10, 1848, the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War.

On this date

In 1629, England’s King Charles I dissolved Parliament; he did not call it back for 11 years.

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson was appointed America’s minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.

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 1927, the Sinclair Lewis novel “Elmer Gantry” was published by Harcourt, Brace & Co.

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

In 1949, Nazi wartime broadcaster Mildred E. Gillars, also known as “Axis Sally,” was convicted in Washington, D.C., of treason. (She served 12 years in prison.)

In 1952, Fulgencio Batista once again became leader of Cuba in a bloodless coup that deposed President Carlos Piro Socarras.

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

In 1973, the Pink Floyd album “The Dark Side of the Moon” was first released in the U.S. by Capitol Records ).

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

In 1987, the Vatican issued a 40-page document on scientific techniques involving procreation, condemning such practices as surrogate motherhood, test-tube births and cloning.

In 1993, Dr. David Gunn was shot to death outside a Pensacola, Florida, abortion clinic. (Shooter Michael Griffin is serving a life sentence.)

The Associated Press