March 9 is the 68th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (69th in Leap years). There are 297 days remaining.

Events

• 1276 - Augsburg becomes an Imperial Free City
• 1765 - After a public campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son had actually committed suicide.
• 1796 - Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
• 1841 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the Amistad case, concerning captive Africans who seized control of the slave-trading ship carrying them: the court rules that they had been taken into slavery illegally.
• 1847 - Mexican-American War: United States forces under General Winfield Scott invade Mexico near Vera Cruz.
• 1862 - American Civil War: The first battle between two ironclad warships - In a five-hour battle near Hampton Roads, Virginia the USS Monitor fights the CSS Virginia to a draw.
• 1916 - Pancho Villa leads 1,500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17.
• 1924 - Italy annexes Fiume.
• 1933 - Great Depression: The U.S. Congress begins its first 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress.
• 1945 - World War II: Bombing of Tokyo - American B-29 bombers attack Tokyo, Japan with incendiary bombs. The resulting fire storm kills over 100,000 people.
• 1954 - McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy," produced by Edward R. Murrow.
• 1957 - Aleutian Islands register a 9.1 magnitude earthquake
• 1959 - The Barbie doll debuts.
• 1964 - The first Ford Mustang rolls off the assembly line at Ford Motor Company.
• 1967 - Josef Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States.
• 1975 - Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
• 1977 - Approximately a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims take over three buildings in Washington, DC, killing one person and taking more than 130 hostages. The hostage situation ends two days later.
• 1986 - United States Navy divers find the largely intact but heavily-damaged crew compartment of the Space Shuttle Challenger. The bodies of all seven astronauts were still inside.
• 1987 - Rock band U2 release the album The Joshua Tree.
• 1989 - A strike forces financially-troubled Eastern Airlines into bankruptcy.
• 1990 - Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first female and Hispanic American to serve in that position.
• 1990 - Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Clyde Wells confirms he will rescind Newfoundland's approval of the Meech Lake Accord, effectively killing the Accord.
• 1991 - Massive demonstrations are held against Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade. Two people are killed and tanks are in the streets.
• 1993 - Rodney King testifies at the federal trial of four Los Angeles, California police officers accused of violating King's civil rights when they beat him during an arrest.
• 2004 - John Allen Muhammad is sentenced to death for his part in the Beltway sniper attacks of October 2002. Lee Boyd Malvo is sentenced to life in prison.
• 2004 - A terrorist attack on a restaurant in Istanbul kills one and injures 5.
• 2005 - Dan Rather presents his final broadcast of the CBS Evening News.

Births

• 1213 - Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy
• 1454 - Amerigo Vespucci, explorer and cartographer (d. 1512)
• 1697 - Friederike Caroline Neuber , actress (d. 1760)
• 1749 - Honore Mirabeau, politician (d. 1791)
• 1763 - William Cobbett, journalist and author (d. 1835)
• 1856 - Eddie Foy, singer, dancer, vaudeville performer (d. 1928)
• 1887 - Phil Mead, English cricketeer and left-handed batsman (d. 1958)
• 1890 - Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet politician (d. 1986)
• 1892 - Vita Sackville-West, writer, gardener (d. 1962)
• 1900 - Howard Aiken, computing pioneer (d. 1973)
• 1902 - Will Geer, actor (d. 1978)
• 1910 - Samuel Barber, American composer (d. 1981)
• 1918 - Mickey Spillane, mystery writer
• 1918 - George Lincoln Rockwell, American Nazi leader (d. 1967)
• 1921 - Carl Betz , American actor (d. 1978)
• 1923 - Walter Kohn, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1998)
• 1924 - Peter Scholl-Latour , journalist
• 1932 - Keely Smith, American singer
• 1933 - Mel Lastman, Canadian politician
• 1934 - Yuri Gagarin, cosmonaut, first human in space (d. 1968)
• 1936 - Tom Sestak, American football player (d. 1987)
• 1937 - Mickey Gilley, country music performer
• 1940 - John Cale, composer, musician
• 1940 - Raúl Juliá, actor (d. 1994)
• 1941 - Ernesto Miranda, litigant in Miranda v. Arizona (d. 1976)
• 1942 - Mark Lindsay , American musician (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
• 1943 - Bobby Fischer, chess player
• 1943 - Charles Gibson, television journalist
• 1945 - Trish Van Devere , American actress
• 1947 - Keri Hulme, New Zealand writer
• 1948 - Jeffrey Osborne , singer
• 1950 - Doug Ault, Major League Baseball player (d. 2004)
• 1950 - Danny Sullivan, automobile racer
• 1951 - Michael Kinsley, journalist, editor, founder of Slate magazine
• 1954 - Bobby Sands, Irish republican (d. 1981)
• 1960 - Linda Fiorentino, actress
• 1964 - Juliette Binoche, actress
• 1965 - Benito Santiago, baseball player
• 1971 - Emmanuel Lewis, American actor
• 1972 - Kerr Smith, American soap opera actor
• 1973 - Aaron Boone, Major League Baseball All-Star
• 1980 - Chingy, American rapper
• 1981 - Antonio Bryant, American football wide receiver
• 1987 - Bow Wow, rap musician, actor

Deaths

• 1661 - Jules Cardinal Mazarin, French cardinal and statesman (b. 1602)
• 1808 - Joseph Bonomi the Elder, architect (b. 1739)
• 1954 - Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs, astronomer, (b. 1912)
• 1964 - Paul Erich von Lettow-Vorbeck, German general (b. 1870)
• 1983 - Faye Emerson , American actress
• 1981 - Max Delbrück, biologist, (b. 1906)
• 1989 - Robert Mapplethorpe, artist, (b. 1946)
• 1989 - Sam Melville , American actor
• 1992 - Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, (b. 1913)
• 1993 - C. Northcote Parkinson, historian and writer (b. 1909)
• 1994 - Charles Bukowski, poet, writer, (b.1920)
• 1996 - George Burns, actor, singer, (b. 1896)
• 1997 - The Notorious B.I.G., rap musician, (b. 1972 as Christopher Wallace)
• 2000 - Ivo Robić , singer and songwriter - Croatia, Mister Morgen , (b 1923)
• 2003 - Stan Brakhage, filmmaker, (b. 1933)
• 2003 - Bernard Dowiyogo, former president of Nauru, (b. 1946)
• 2004 - Albert Mol, actor (b.1917)
• 2004 - Robert Pastorelli, actor (b. 1954)

Holidays and observances

• Catholicism - Feast day of St Frances of Rome.
• Belize - Baron Bliss Day
• United Kingdom - National No Smoking Day

External links

• BBC: On This Day

March 8 - March 10 - February 9 - April 9 -- Listing of all days