On This Day — 9 March

2023

A shooting in the Alsterdorf quarter of Hamburg, Germany, kills eight people and injures another eight.

2023 Hamburg shooting

2020

Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy, announces in a televised address and signs the decree imposing the first nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in the world.

Giuseppe Conte

2015

Two Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil helicopters collide in mid-air over Villa Castelli, Argentina, killing all 10 people on board both aircraft, including French athletes Florence Arthaud, Camille Muffat and Alexis Vastine, as well as producers and guests for the French TV show Dropped.

Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil

2012

A truce between the Salvadoran government and gangs in the country goes into effect when 30 gang leaders are transferred to lower security prisons.

2012–2014 Salvadoran gang truce

2011

Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.

Space Shuttle Discovery

2000

Nupedia, a multi-language online encyclopedia, is launched.

Nupedia

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.

Comet Hale–Bopp

1987

Chrysler announces its acquisition of American Motors Corporation.

Chrysler

1978

President Soeharto inaugurates Jagorawi Toll Road, the first toll highway in Indonesia, connecting Jakarta, Bogor and Ciawi, West Java.

Suharto

1977

The Hanafi Siege: In a 39-hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D.C., buildings.

1977 Washington, D.C., attack and hostage taking

1976

Forty-two people die in the Cavalese cable car disaster, the deadliest cable car accident in history.

1976 Cavalese cable car crash

1974

The Mars 7 Flyby bus releases the descent module too early, missing Mars.

Mars 7

1967

Trans World Airlines Flight 553 crashes in a field in Concord Township, Ohio, following a mid-air collision with a Beechcraft Baron, killing 26 people.

Trans World Airlines

1961

Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a dog and a human dummy, and demonstrating that the Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.

Korabl-Sputnik 4

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.

Belding Hibbard Scribner

1959

The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.

Barbie

1957

The 8.6 Mw  Andreanof Islands earthquake shakes the Aleutian Islands, causing over $5 million in damage from ground movement and a destructive tsunami.

1957 Andreanof Islands earthquake

1956

Soviet forces suppress mass demonstrations in the Georgian SSR, reacting to Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy.

Red Army

1954

McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy", produced by Fred Friendly.

McCarthyism

1946

Bolton Wanderers stadium disaster at Burnden Park, Bolton, England, kills 33 and injures hundreds more.

Bolton Wanderers F.C.

1945

World War II: A coup d'état by Japanese forces in French Indochina removes the French from power.

Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina

1945

World War II: Allied forces carry out firebombing over Tokyo, destroying most of the capital and killing over 100,000 civilians.

Allies of World War II

1944

World War II: Soviet Army planes attack Tallinn, Estonia.

Bombing of Tallinn in World War II

1942

World War II: Dutch East Indies unconditionally surrenders to the Japanese forces in Kalijati, Subang, West Java, and the Japanese complete their Dutch East Indies campaign.

World War II

1933

Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies.

Great Depression

1916

Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.

Mexican Revolution

1908

Inter Milan is founded on Football Club Internazionale, following a schism from A.C. Milan.

Inter Milan

1883

Demonstration of 9 March 1883: Parisian anarchists, unemployed and carpenters narrowly miss the Presidential palace during a violent protest; first use of the black flag as a symbol of anarchism by Louise Michel.

Demonstration of 9 March 1883

1862

American Civil War: USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (rebuilt from the engines and lower hull of the USS Merrimack) fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.

American Civil War

1847

Mexican–American War: The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz.

Mexican–American War

1842

Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, Nabucco, receives its première performance in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera composers.

Giuseppe Verdi

1842

The first documented discovery of gold in California occurs at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the California Gold Rush.

Gold

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.

Supreme Court of the United States

1815

Francis Ronalds describes the first battery-operated clock in the Philosophical Magazine.

Francis Ronalds

1811

Paraguayan forces defeat Manuel Belgrano at the Battle of Tacuarí.

Manuel Belgrano

1796

Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.

Napoleon

1776

Scottish philosopher Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations, ushering in the classical period of political economy.

Adam Smith

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 died by suicide.

Voltaire

1701

Safavid troops retreat from Basra, ending a three-year occupation.

Safavid Iran

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 1494.

Pedro Álvares Cabral

1230

Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirus in the Battle of Klokotnitsa.

Bulgaria

1226

Khwarazmian sultan Jalal ad-Din conquers the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

Anushtegin dynasty

1044

The people of Constantinople riot against emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, whose preference of his mistress Maria Skleraina over empress Zoe Porphyrogenita is seen as an insult.

Constantinople

1009

First known mention of Lithuania, in the annals of the monastery of Quedlinburg.

Lithuania

-141

Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne over the Han dynasty of China.

Posthumous name