March 9

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.