09 March History
- 1617 - The Treaty of Stolbovo ends the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.
- 1734 - The Russians take Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland.
- 1788 - Connecticut becomes the 5th state.
- 1796 - Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine de Beauharnais in Paris, France.
- 1812 - Swedish Pomerania is seized by Napoleon.
- 1820 - Congress passes the Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion.
- 1839 - The French Academy of Science announces the Daguerreotype photo process.
- 1841 - The rebel slaves who seized a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, in 1839 are freed by the Supreme Court despite Spanish demands for extradition.
- 1862 - The first and last battle between the ironclads U.S.S. Monitor and C.S.S. Virginia ends in a draw.
- 1864 - General Ulysses Grant is appointed commander-in-chief of the Union forces.
- 1911 - The funding for five new battleships is added to the British military defense budget.
- 1915 - The Germans take Grondno on the Eastern Front.
- 1916 - Mexican bandit Pancho Villa leads 1,500 horsemen on a raid of Columbus, N.M. killing 17 U.S. soldiers and citizens.
- 1932 - Eamon De Valera is elected president of the Irish Free State and pledges to abolish all loyalty to the British Crown.
- 1936 - The German press warns that all Jews who vote in the upcoming elections will be arrested.
- 1939 - Czech President Emil Hacha ousts pro-German Joseph Tiso as the Premier of Slovakia in order to preserve Czech unity.
- 1940 - Britain frees captured Italian coal ships on the eve of German Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop's visit to Rome.
- 1956 - British authorities arrest and deport Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus. He is accused of supporting terrorists.
- 1957 - Egyptian leader Nasser bars U.N. plans to share the tolls for the use of the Suez Canal.
- 1959 - The Barbie doll is unveiled at a toy fair in New York City.
- 1964 - The first Ford Mustang rolls off the Ford assembly line.
- 1967 - Svetlana Alliluyeva, Josef Stalin's daughter defects to the United States.
- 1968 - General William Westmoreland asks for 206,000 more troops in Vietnam.
- 1975 - Iraq launches an offensive against the rebellious Kurds.
- 1986 - Navy divers find the crew compartment of the space shuttle Challenger along with the remains of the astronauts.
09 March Birthdays
- 1451 - Amerigo Vespucci, Italian navigator.
- 1824 - Leland Stanford, railroad builder, founder of Stanford University.
- 1890 - Vyacheslav Molotov, former Soviet Prime Minister.
- 1892 - Vita Sackville-West, writer.
- 1905 - Peter Quennell, biographer.
- 1910 - Samuel Barber, American composer ("Adagio for Strings," Vanessa).
- 1918 - Frank Morrison Spillane [Mickey Spillane], crime writer (Kiss Me, Deadly, The Erection Set).
- 1930 - Ornette Coleman, jazz saxophonist.
- 1934 - Yuri Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, the first man to orbit the Earth.
- 1943 - Bobby Fischer, first American world chess champion.
- 1947 - Keri Hulme, New Zealand novelist (The Bone People).