Daily Calendar for Saturday, March 9, 2024

Born

  • Amerigo Vespucci (merchant & navigator)
  • Edwin Forrest (Shakespearean actor)
  • Will Geer (actor)
  • Samuel Barber (composer)
  • Mickey Spillane (author)
  • Yuri Gagarin (first human to travel in space)
  • Raul Julia (actor)
  • Mark Lindsay (musician; member of Paul Revere & the Raiders )
  • Bobby Fischer (champion chess player)
  • Charles Gibson (journalist)
  • David Hume Kennerly (photographer)
  • Juliette Binoche (actress)
  • Emmanuel Lewis (actor)
  • Lil' Bow Wow (rapper, actor)
  • Sunisa "Suni" Lee (Olympic gymnast)

Died

  • Charles Bukowski (poet)
  • Fernando Rey (actor)
  • George Burns (comedian & actor)
  • Chris LeDoux (country musician)
  • Brad Delp (musician)
  • Doris "Granny D" Haddock (political activist)

Events

  • Napoleon Bonaparte married Josephine de Beauharnais in Paris—he arrived two hours late for the wedding
  • President James Monroe’s daughter, Maria, became the first daughter of a president to be married in the White House
  • A patent for artificial teeth was granted to Charles Graham of New York
  • Abraham Lincoln announced he was running for his first political office. He failed for his bid for a seat in the Illinois legislature
  • First Japanese Ambassador to U.S. arrived in San Francisco, CA
  • Battle of U.S.S. Monitor and U.S.S. Merrimack (renamed C.S.S. Virginia) ended in a draw
  • First V-8 Ford was built by Ford Motor Company
  • The Hundred Days began. President FDR pushed sweeping social and economic reforms of the New Deal through Congress within the next 100 days
  • Journalist Edward R. Murrow accused Sen. McCarthy of misleading the U.S. public and persecuting Congressional witnesses
  • Celebrity premiere of East of Eden, the film version of John Stienbeck’s novel
  • Barbie doll debuted
  • The first animal to return from space was a dog whose Russian name translated as Blackie, aboard the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 9
  • The Smothers Brothers’ television show was cancelled after they refused to censor a comment made by Joan Baez. She wanted to dedicate her song to her husband, David, who was about to go to jail for objecting to the draft
  • Work began on the 789-mile Alaskan oil pipeline, the largest private construction project in U.S. history
  • Health and Welfare Canada banned saccharin as a food additive
  • Anne M. Burford was forced to resign as head of the EPA following a dispute with Congress over the agency’s enforcement of toxic waste regulations
  • Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Carole King, Gerry Goffin, and Carole Bayer Sager were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
  • President George H. W. Bush’s nominee for defense secratary, John Tower, lost Senate ratification vote
  • Chris Bertish, a South African surfer, paddleboarded across the Atlantic solo. The 4,050 trek took him 93 days.

Weather

  • Twelve-inch snowstorm in narrow band from Louisville, Kentucky, into Virginia and North Carolina’s mountains
  • Southern Indiana received up to 9 inches of snow

Explore Other Dates on the Calendar