Today in History: The U.S. and Canada Establish Their Common Border

On this day (August 9) in 1842, the United States and Britain signed the Webster-Ashburton Treaty that established the border between the British territory that became Canada and the United States. It also called for a final end to the slave trade on the high seas, agreed that both parties would share the Great Lakes, and established seven crimes for which the alleged perpetrator would be extradited to the other country: murder, attempted murder, arson, robbery, piracy, forgery, and the “utterance of forged papers.”