The British used to sail up the Columbia River for fur trading, had several forts the whole way. Also the origin of the name British Columbia. They had a much better claim for Washington State, but the US really pushed hard because they wanted a deep water Pacific port (Seattle area) and didn’t have San Francisco at the time.
Police in Indianapolis have identified a 12th body buried on the estate of now-deceased wealthy Republican businessman Herbert Baumeister, a closeted gay man who is believed to have murdered over 20 men and boys that he met in Indianapolis gay bars during the mid-1980s and ’90s.