3-9-2010 Today in History
March 9th, 2010USCC member Richard MM was born this date.
AP: Today is Tuesday, March 9, the 68th day of 2010. There are 297 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On March 9, 1862, during the Civil War, the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimac) clashed for five hours to a draw at Hampton Roads, Va.
On this date:
In 1796, the future emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte, married Josephine de Beauharnais (boh-ahr-NAY’). (The couple later divorced.)
In 1910, American composer Samuel Barber, best remembered for his Adagio for Strings, was born in West Chester, Pa.
In 1916, Mexican raiders led by Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, N.M., killing 18 Americans.
In 1932, Eamon de Valera was appointed head of government of the Irish Free State.
In 1945, during World War II, U.S. B-29 bombers launched incendiary bomb attacks against Japan, resulting in an estimated 100,000 deaths.
In 1954, CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow critically reviewed Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy’s anti-Communism campaign on “See It Now.”
In 1959, Mattel’s Barbie doll, created by Ruth Handler, made its public debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
In 1964, the Supreme Court, in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, ruled that public officials who charged they’d been libeled by news reports could not recover damages unless they proved actual malice on the part of the news organization.
In 1977, about a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims invaded three buildings in Washington, D.C., killing one person and taking more than 130 hostages. (The siege ended two days later.)
In 1990, Dr. Antonia Novello was sworn in as surgeon general, becoming the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the job.
Ten years ago: John McCain suspended his presidential campaign, conceding the Republican nomination to George W. Bush. Bill Bradley ended his presidential bid, conceding the Democratic nomination to Vice President Al Gore.
Five years ago: Michael Jackson’s young accuser took the witness stand, saying he once considered the pop star being tried for allegedly molesting him “the coolest guy in the world.” (Jackson was later acquitted.) Dan Rather signed off for the last time as principal anchorman of “The CBS Evening News.”
One year ago: President Barack Obama lifted George W. Bush-era limits on using federal dollars for embryonic stem cell research.
Today’s Birthdays: Former Sen. James L. Buckley (Conservative-N.Y.) is 87. Singer-actress Keely Smith is 78. Singer Lloyd Price is 77. Actress Joyce Van Patten is 76. Actor-comedian Marty Ingels is 74. Country singer Mickey Gilley is 74. Actress Trish Van Devere is 69. Singer Mark Lindsay (Paul Revere and the Raiders) is 68. Former ABC anchorman Charles Gibson is 67. Rock musician Robin Trower is 65. Singer Jeffrey Osborne is 62. Country musician Jimmie Fadden (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) is 62. Actress Jaime Lyn Bauer is 61. Magazine editor Michael Kinsley is 59. TV newscaster Faith Daniels is 53. Actor-director Lonny Price is 51. Actress Linda Fiorentino is 50. Country musician Rusty Hendrix (Confederate Railroad) is 50. Actress Juliette Binoche is 46. Rock musician Robert Sledge (Ben Folds Five) is 42. Rapper C-Murder is 39. Actor Emmanuel Lewis is 39. Actress Jean Louisa Kelly is 38. Actor Kerr Smith is 38. Rapper Chingy is 30. Actor Matthew Gray Gubler is 30. Actress Brittany Snow is 24. Rapper Bow Wow is 23. Actor Luis Armand Garcia is 18.
Thought for Today: “Delay is the deadliest form of denial.” — C. Northcote Parkinson, British author (1909-1993).
Wikipedia:
141 BC – Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne over the Han Dynasty of China.
1230 – Bulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirus in the Battle of Klokotnitsa.
1276 – Augsburg becomes an Imperial Free City.
1500 – The fleet of Pedro Alvares Cabral leaves Lisbon for the Indies. The fleet will discover Brazil which lies within boundaries granted to Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas.
1566 – David Rizzio, the private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland.
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.
1796 – Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
1841 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.
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.
1847 – Mexican-American War: The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz
1856 – National Fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
1862 – American Civil War: The USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first fight between two ironclad warships.
1896 – Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns following the Italian defeat at the Battle of Adowa.
1908 – Inter Milan is founded.
1910 – The Westmoreland County Coal Strike, involving 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers, begins.
1916 – Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico.
1925 – Pink’s War: The first Royal Air Force operation conducted independently of the British Army or Royal Navy begins.
1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to the Congress, the first of his New Deal policies.
1944 – World War II: Japanese troops counter-attack American forces on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that would last five days. Soviet Air Force terror attack to Tallinn, big damages in Tallinn.
1954 – McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, “A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy”, produced by Fred Friendly.
1956 – Soviet military suppresses mass demonstrations in the Georgian SSR, reacting to Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization policy.
1957 – A magnitude 8.3 earthquake in the Andreanof Islands, Alaska triggers a Pacific-wide tsunami causing extensive damage to Hawaii and Oahu.
1959 – The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
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.
1976 – Forty-two people die in the 1976 Cavalese cable-car disaster, the worst cable-car accident to date.
1977 – The Hanafi Muslim Siege: In a thirty-nine hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D.C., buildings, killing two and taking 149 hostage.
1989 – A strike forces financially-troubled Eastern Air Lines 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.
1991 – Massive demonstrations are held against Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade. Two people are killed and tanks are in the streets.
1993 – Rodney King testifies against the four LAPD officers accused of violating his civil rights when they beat him during his 1991 arrest.
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.
