On This Day: Isabel Peron takes over for ailing husband

On this date in history:

In 1853, the U.S. Senate ratified the $10 million Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, adding more than 29,000 square miles to the territories of Arizona and New Mexico and completing the modern geographical boundaries of the contiguous 48 states.

In 1933, Fatty Arbuckle, silent film comedian and one of Hollywood’s most beloved personalities until a manslaughter charge (he was eventually acquitted) ruined his career, died while preparing a comeback. He was 46.

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment, as then administered by individual states, was unconstitutional.

In 1974, Isabel Peron took over as president of Argentina for her ailing husband, Juan Peron, who died two days later. Her official presidency began July 1, 1974.

In 1992, doctors in Pittsburgh reported the world’s first transplant of a baboon liver into a human patient. The recipient, a 35-year-old man, survived three months.

In 1995, a Seoul department store collapsed, killing some 500 people.

In 1995, the U.S. shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir for the first time. NASA’s chief said the docking marked “a new era of friendship and cooperation” between the two countries.

In 2003, Hollywood legend Katharine Hepburn died at the age of 96 after a six-decade career in which she won four Oscars in the Best Actress category.

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled U.S. President George W. Bush didn’t have authority, under military law or the Geneva Conventions, to set up military tribunals for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

In 2009, Bernard Madoff, mastermind of a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, was sentenced to 150 years in prison. The federal judge who imposed the sentence in New York City said Madoff’s crimes were “extraordinarily evil.” Madoff apologized in the courtroom, saying, “I am responsible for a great deal of suffering and pain.”

In 2010, Rodolfo Torre, the leading candidate for governor in the violence-torn Mexican state of Tamaulipas, and four others were ambushed and killed.

In 2011, Greek lawmakers approved some of the toughest economic measures in the nation’s modern history in a five-year austerity plan that included tax increases and job cuts. Observers said the severe budget could be critical to the future of the euro.

In 2012, thousands of people at a rally in Cairo demanded that the military transfer full power to new Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who told the crowd, “There is no power above people power.” Morsi was ousted by the military just over a year later.

In 2013, temperatures of 119 in Phoenix and 115 in Las Vegas sent dozens of people to hospitals. Death Valley, Calif., had a high of 127.

In 2017, Iraqi forces captured Mosul’s Great Mosque of al-Nuri, the mostly destroyed structure where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is believed to have declared a “caliphate” exactly three years earlier.