March 9th in History
On this day in history —
- The Prophet Muhammad preaches his farewell sermon, known as خطبة الوداع, or Khuṭbatu l-Wadā (632)
- Conspirators stab Davide Rizzo, private secretary to Mary Queen of Scots, to death in front of the pregnant monarch (1566)
- The Supreme Court rules in favor of the rebel slaves in The Amistad lawsuit (1841)
- The US Army conducts its first large-scale amphibious assault in Mexico, beginning the Siege of Veracruz (1847)
- The USS Monitor and the CSS Merrimac meet at the Battle of Hampton Roads (1862)
- Pancho Villa attacks New Mexico (1916)
- The RAF conducts its first independent air action in Pink’s War in Waziristan (1925)
- The Tokyo Raid, the most destructive and deadly bombing raid in history, kills over 100,000 people (1945)
- Barbie®, the first adult-bodied mass-market doll, debuts at the American International Toy Fair (1959)
- Sputnik 9 is launched (1961)
- The Hanafi Siege takes places in Washington, DC (1977)
- Rapper Notorious B.I.G. is killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles (1997)
- The space shuttle Discovery lands after its final flight into space (2011)
It’s the birthday of —
- Lil’ Bow Wow, rapper (1987)
- Emmanuel Lewis, Webster star (1971)
- Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, basketball player (1969)
- Brian Bosworth, linebacker (1965)
- Juliette Binoche, actress (1964)
- Linda Fiorentino, actress (1958)
- Ornella Muti, actress (1955)
- Bobby Fisher, chess grandmaster (1943)
- Charles Gibson, GMA host (1943)
- Mark Lindsay, Paul Revere and the Raiders singer (1942)
- Ernesto Miranda, warning namesake (1941)
- Raúl Juliá, actor (1940)
- Mickey Gilley, country singer (1936)
- Tom Sestak, lineman (1936)
- Yuri Gagarin (Ю́рий Гага́рин), first human in outer space (1934)
- André Courrèges, inventor of the miniskirt (1923)
- Mickey Spillane, novelist (1918)
- George Lincoln Rockwell, American Nazi (1918)
- Johnnie Johnson, highest scoring Western Allied fighter ace of World War II (1915)
- Paul Klipsch, audio inventor (1904)
- Will Geer, Waltons grandfather (1902)
- Vita Sackville-West, writer (1892)
- Vyacheslav Molotov (Вячесла́в Мо́лотов), cocktail namesake (1890)
- Aloysius Gonzaga, S.J., saint (1568)
- Amerigo Vespucci, continental namesake (1454)
Deaths —
- David Broder, journalist (2011)
- Willie Davis, center fielder (2010)
- John Profumo, scandal namesake (2006)
- Terry Nation, Doctor Who writer (1997)
- George Burns, vaudevillian (1996)
- Charles Bukowski, “laureate of American lowlife” (1994)
- Bob Crosby, bandleader (1993)
- C. Northcote Parkinson, law creator (1993)
- Menachem Begin (1992)
- Robert Mapplethorpe, photographer (1989)
- Margot Frank, Anne’s sister and Holocaust victim (1945)
- Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, masochist (1895)
- Kaiser Wilhelm I, German emperor (1888)
Holidays —
- Eid Al Moalim (Teacher’s Day), Lebanon
- Feast of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, Catholicism