March 9 is the 68th day of the year (69th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 297 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
- Christian Feast Day:
- Teachers’ Day or Eid Al Moalim (Lebanon)
History
In 141 BC, Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne over the Han Dynasty of China.
In 632, The Last Sermon (Khutbah, Khutbatul Wada’) of Prophet Muhammad.
In 1009, First known mention of Lithuania, in the annals of the monastery of Quedlinburg.
In 1074, Pope Gregory VII declared all married Roman Catholic priests to be excommunicated.
In 1230, Bulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirus in the Battle of Klokotnitsa.
In 1276, Augsburg becomes an Imperial Free City.
In 1500, The fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral leaves Lisbon for the Indies. The fleet will discover Brazil which lies within boundaries granted to Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas.
In 1566, David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland.
In 1627, John Bowne, English-American activist (d. 1695) was born. He was an English immigrant residing in the Dutch colony of New Netherland, who is honored today as a pioneer in the American struggle for religious liberty. Born in Matlock, Derbyshire, on 9 March 1627, Bowne emigrated with his father and sister to Boston, Mass. in 1648. Bowne became a merchant and married well, his wife Hannah Feake (ca.1637–1678), whom he married in 1656, being a great-niece of Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts. Bowne and his bride, however, soon became adherents of the new doctrine of Quakerism, which was then being actively repressed in most of the English colonies of New England. Accordingly by 1661 they had relocated to Flushing, Long Island, where a small group of English-speaking Quakers were attempting to practice their faith in defiance of the Dutch governor of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant. In 1662 Bowne was arrested on orders of Governor Stuyvesant for allowing a Quaker meeting in his house. Refusing to pay the assessed fine, or to depart from the province, he was sent to Holland for trial before the Dutch West India Company. There, he successfully exonerated himself by appealing to the guarantees of religious liberty contained in the Flushing patent of 1645 granted by Governor William Kieft; see Flushing Remonstrance. Winning the respect of his judges by his uncompromising stance, he was released, and returned triumphantly home in 1664, Governor Stuyvesant being ordered to extend tolerance to all religious sects. Although the New Netherland was soon to become the English colony of New York, the ideal of religious freedom for which John Bowne had stood up was upheld by the province’s new rulers, serving as an example for the other English colonies in North America, and ultimately to the framers of the American Constitution as well.
In 1765, After a 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 may have actually committed suicide.
In 1796, Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
In 1798, Dr. George Balfour became the first naval surgeon in the U.S. Navy.
In 1811, Paraguayan forces defeat Manuel Belgrano at the Battle of Tacuarí.
In 1822, Charles M. Graham of N.Y. was granted a patent for his invention of artificial teeth.
In 1831, The French Foreign Legion was founded by King Louis Philippe with its headquarters in Algeria.
In 1832, Abraham Lincoln of New Salem, IL, announced that he would run for political office for the first time. He sought a seat in the Illinois state legislature. “Honest Abe” was not successful. Less than thirty years later, however, he become President of the United States.
In 1841, The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.
In 1842, Giuseppe Verdi‘s third opera, Nabucco, receives its première performance in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy’s foremost opera writers.
In 1842, The first documented discovery of gold in California occurs at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the California Gold Rush.
In 1847, Mexican–American War: The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz.
In 1858, The street letter box is patented by Albert Potts of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1859, The National Association of Baseball Players adopted a rule on this day that allowed bats to be no more than 2-1/2 inches in diameter.
In 1861, Confederate currency authorized-$50, $100, $500, $1,000.
In 1862, American Civil War: The USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.
In 1864, In the U.S. Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant was appointed commander-in-chief of the Union armies.
In 1889, Kansas passes first general antitrust law in US.
In 1896, Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns following the Italian defeat at the Battle of Adowa.
In 1907, first involuntary sterilization law enacted, Indiana.
In 1908, Inter Milan was founded on Football Club Internazionale, following a schism from the Milan Cricket and Football Club.
In 1910, The Westmoreland County coal strike, involving 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers, begins.
In 1916, Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.
In 1916, Germany declares war against Portugal.
In 1918, Mickey Spillane, American author (d. 2006) was born. Frank Morrison Spillane, better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American author of crime novels, many featuring his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. In 1980, Spillane was responsible for seven of the top 15 all-time best-selling fiction titles in the U.S. Born in Brooklyn, New York City, and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Spillane was the only child of his Irish bartender father, John Joseph Spillane, and his Scottish mother, Catherine Anne. Spillane attended Erasmus Hall High School, graduating in 1935. He started writing while in high school, briefly attended Fort Hays State College in Kansas and worked a variety of jobs, including summers as a lifeguard at Breezy Point, Queens, and a period as a trampoline artist for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
In 1924, South Slavia aproves Italy’s annexation of Fiume (Rijeka).
In 1925, Pink’s War: The first Royal Air Force operation conducted independently of the British Army or Royal Navy begins.
In 1933, Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies.
In 1941, In World War II the Italian offensive in Albania began but became bogged down after only four days.
In 1942, the construction of the Alaska Highway begins. It is completed 8 months, 1523 miles, 233 bridges, 5 mountain ranges, and $115
million later by 18,000 workers.
In 1944, World War II: Japanese troops counter-attack American forces on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that would last five days.
In 1944, World War II: Soviet Army planes attack Tallinn, Estonia.
In 1945, The Bombing of Tokyo by the United States Army Air Forces begin, one of the most destructive bombing raids in history.
In 1945, World War II: A coup d’état by Japanese forces in French Indochina removes the French from power.
In 1946, Bolton Wanderers stadium disaster at Burnden Park, Bolton, England, kills 33 and injures hundreds more.
In 1954, McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, “A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy“, produced by Fred Friendly.
In 1956, Soviet forces suppress mass demonstrations in the Georgian SSR, reacting to Nikita Khrushchev‘s de-Stalinization policy.
In 1957, A magnitude 8.3 earthquake in the Andreanof Islands, Alaska triggers a Pacific-wide tsunami causing extensive damage to Hawaii and Oahu.
In 1959, The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York. Over 800 million have been sold.
In 1959, the first known radar contact is made with Venus.
In 1960, Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner implants for the first time a shunt he invented into a patient, which allows the patient to receive hemodialysis on a regular basis.
In 1961, Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a human dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, and demonstrating that Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.
In 1962, US advisers in South-Vietnam join the fight.
In 1964, the first Ford Mustang was produced.
In 1964, the Supreme Court issued its New York Times vs. Sullivan decision, which said public officials who charged they’d been libeled could not recover damages for a report related to their official duties unless they proved actual malice on the part of the news organization.
In 1967, Trans World Airlines Flight 553, a Douglas DC-9-15, crashes in a field in Concord Township, Ohio following a mid-air collision with a Beechcraft Baron, killing 26.
In 1974, the last Japanese soldier, a guerrilla operating in the Philippines, surrenders, 29 years after WW II.
In 1976, Forty-two people die in the 1976 Cavalese cable car disaster, the worst cable-car accident to date.
In 1976, The first female cadets are accepted for admission to West Point Military Academy.
In 1977, The Hanafi Siege: In a thirty-nine-hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D.C., buildings, killing two and taking 149 hostage.
In 1983, In response to Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” speech, a Soviet government spokesman says the American president has a “pathological hatred of Socialism and Communism.”
In 1987, Chrysler Corp. announced it had agreed to buy the financially ailing American Motors Corp. for a total of $757 million in cash and
stock.
In 1989, Financially troubled Eastern Air Lines filed for bankruptcy.
In 1989, William Bennett was confirmed by the Senate as the nation’s first Cabinet-level drug czar.
In 1991, Massive demonstrations are held against Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade.
In 1993, Janet Reno sailed through her confirmation hearing en route to becoming the nation’s first female attorney general.
In 1996, George Burns, American actor and singer (b. 1896) dies. Born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor and writer. He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three-quarters of a century. At the age of 79, Burns’ career was resurrected as an amiable, beloved and unusually active old comedian in the 1975 film The Sunshine Boys, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He continued to work until shortly before his death, in 1996, at the age of 100.
In 1997, Comet Hale–Bopp: Observers in China, Mongolia and eastern Siberia are treated to a rare double feature as an eclipse permits Hale-Bopp to be seen during the day.
In 2011, Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.
In 2012, First winter ascent of Gasherbrum I by Adam Bielecki and Janusz Gołąb. Gasherbrum I is the 11th highest mountain in the world at 8,080 metres (26,510 ft) above sea level. It is located on the Pakistani–Chinese border in Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan and Xinjiang region of China.
In 2015, Two helicopters collided near Villa Castelli, Argentina killing 10 people.
In 2018, Biological male and former transgender model Munroe Bergdorf, UK’s Labour Equalities advisor, argued that children as young as 8 years old should be able to choose their gender and begin transitioning so they can embrace their true selves. Bergdorf had been fired earlier from the position in September after he insisted white people are responsible for all the terrorism in the world.