March 9 in History

March 9 spans 45 recorded events across recorded history, from 141 BC to 2023. Below is a curated digest of the most significant moments tied to this date.

Holidays and observances on March 9

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President Soeharto inaugurates Jagorawi Toll Road, the first toll highway in Ind

1978 — President Soeharto inaugurates Jagorawi Toll Road, the first toll highway in Indonesia, connecting Jakarta, Bogor and Ciawi, West Java.

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Historical Events 45 events 141 BC – 2023

More major events on March 9

The featured story and these ranked highlights form a quick summary. Every recorded event remains available in the chronology below.

  1. 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. Source
  2. 1842 The first documented discovery of gold in California occurs at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the California Gold Rush. Source

Did you know

In 1978, President Soeharto inaugurates Jagorawi Toll Road, the first toll highway in Indonesia, connecting Jakarta, Bogor and Ciawi, West Java. This featured entry focuses on the immediate decision and its direct historical impact.

Did you know

The Jakarta–Bogor–Ciawi Toll Road or shortened to Jagorawi Toll Road/Jalan Tol Jagorawi is the first controlled-access toll road in Indonesia. This helps explain why the event mattered beyond the initial announcement.

Did you know

Construction of the highway began in 1973, and it was officially opened on 9 March 1978. This clarifies the institutional and public response around the event.

Did you know

In 1978, President Soeharto inaugurates Jagorawi Toll Road, the first toll highway in Indonesia, connecting Jakarta, Bogor and Ciawi, West Java had consequences that extended beyond the first headline. The key context is the institutions involved, the policy shift, and how the public response evolved afterward.

Did you know

In 1978, President Soeharto inaugurates Jagorawi Toll Road, the first toll highway in Indonesia, connecting Jakarta, Bogor and Ciawi, West Java had consequences that extended beyond the first headline. The key context is the institutions involved, the policy shift, and how the public response evolved afterward.


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Showing all 44 events

-141

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

A posthumous name is an honorary name given mainly to revered dead people in East Asian culture. It is predominantly used in Asian countries such as China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Timor-Leste and Thailand. Reflecting on the person's accomplishments or reputation, the title is assigned after death and essentially replaces the name used during life. Although most posthumous names are given to royalty, some posthumous names are given to honor significant people without hereditary titles, such as courtiers or military generals.
1009 Lithuania

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

Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and the Russian semi-exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest, with a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Lithuania covers an area of 65,300 km2 (25,200 sq mi), and has a population of 2.9 million. Its capital and largest city is Vilnius; other major cities include Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys. Lithuanians are the titular nation, belong to the ethnolinguistic group of Balts, and speak Lithuanian.
1044 Constantinople

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, the modern Istanbul, was the capital of the Roman and Byzantine Empire from 330 until its takeover by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. After this, it continued to function as the Ottoman capital Konstantiniyye until the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate in 1922. It was located at the core of the modern city of Istanbul, on a peninsula at the southeastern tip of Thrace in Europe; with the Bosporus strait and the ancient cities of Chalcedon and Chrysopolis in Bithynia, Anatolia to the east; the Golden Horn and the citadel of Galata (Pera) to the north; the Sea of Marmara to the south; and the Princes' Islands to the southeast.
1226 Anushtegin_dynasty

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

The Anushtegin dynasty or Anushteginids, also known as the Khwarazmian dynasty was a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic mamluk origin from the Bekdili clan of the Oghuz Turks. The Anushteginid dynasty ruled the Khwarazmian Empire, consisting in large parts of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran in the approximate period of 1077 to 1231, first as vassals of the Seljuks and the Qara Khitai, and later as independent rulers, up until the Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire in the 13th century.
1230 Bulgaria

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

Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey to the south, Serbia and North Macedonia to the west, and Romania across the Danube river to the north. It covers a territory of 110,994 square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), making it the tenth largest within the European Union and the sixteenth-largest country in Europe by area. Sofia is the nation's capital and largest city; other major cities include Plovdiv, Varna, and Burgas.
1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral

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 (European Portuguese: [ˈpeðɾu ˈalvɐɾɨʃ kɐˈβɾal], Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈpedɾu ˈawvɐɾɨʃ, ˈawvɐɾɨs kɐˈbɾal]; born Pedro Álvares de Gouveia; c. 1467 or 1468 – c. 1520) was a Portuguese nobleman, colonizer, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil. He was the first human in history to ever be on four continents, uniting all of them in his famous voyage of 1500, where he also conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Portugal. While details of Cabral's early life remain unclear, it is known that he came from a minor noble family and received a good education. He was appointed to head an expedition to India in 1500, following Vasco da Gama's newly opened route around Africa. The undertaking had the aim of returning with valuable spices and of establishing trade relations in India—bypassing the monopoly on the spice trade then in the hands of Arab, Turkish and Italian merchants. Although the previous expedition of Vasco da Gama to India, on its sea route, had recorded signs of land west of the southern Atlantic Ocean (in 1497), Cabral led the first known expedition to have touched four continents: Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia. His fleet of 13 ships sailed far into the western Atlantic Ocean, perhaps intentionally, and made landfall (April 1500) on what he initially assumed to be a large island. As the new land was within the Portuguese sphere according to the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, Cabral claimed it for the Portuguese Crown. He explored the coast, realizing that the large land mass was probably a continent, and dispatched a ship to notify King Manuel I of the new territory. The continent was South America, and the land he had claimed for Portugal later came to be known as Brazil. The fleet reprovisioned and then turned eastward to resume the journey to India. A storm in the southern Atlantic caused the loss of several ships, and the six remaining ships eventually rendezvoused in the Mozambique Channel before proceeding to Calicut in India. Cabral was originally successful in negotiating trading rights, but Arab merchants saw Portugal's venture as a threat to their monopoly and stirred up an attack by both Muslims and Hindus on the Portuguese entrepôt. The Portuguese sustained many casualties and their facilities were destroyed. Cabral took vengeance by looting and burning the Arab fleet and then bombarded the city in retaliation for its ruler having failed to explain the unexpected attack. From Calicut the expedition sailed to the Kingdom of Cochin, another Indian city-state, where Cabral befriended its ruler and loaded his ships with coveted spices before returning to Europe. Despite the loss of human lives and ships, Cabral's voyage was deemed a success upon his return to Portugal. The extraordinary profits resulting from the sale of the spices bolstered the Portuguese Crown's finances and helped lay the foundation of a Portuguese Empire that would stretch from the Americas to the Far East. Cabral was later passed over, possibly as a result of a quarrel with Manuel I, when a new fleet was assembled to establish a more robust presence in India. Having lost favor with the King, he retired to a private life of which few records survive. His accomplishments slipped mostly into obscurity for more than 300 years. Decades after Brazil's independence from Portugal in the 19th century, Cabral's reputation began to be rehabilitated by Emperor Pedro II of Brazil. Historians have long argued whether Cabral was Brazil's discoverer, and whether the discovery was accidental or intentional. The first question has been settled by the observation that the few, cursory encounters by explorers before him were barely noticed at the time and contributed nothing to the future development and history of the land which would become Brazil, the sole Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas. On the second question, no definite consensus has been formed, and the intentional discovery hypothesis lacks solid proof. Nevertheless, although he was overshadowed by contemporary explorers, historians consider Cabral to be a major figure of the Age of Discovery.
1701 Safavid_Iran

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

The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Safavid Iran, Safavid Persia or the Safavid Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lasting Iranian empires. It was ruled by the Safavid dynasty from 1501 to 1736, albeit others place the end on the year 1722, when Isfahan fell to the Afghans. It is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history, as well as one of the gunpowder empires.
1765 Voltaire

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.
François-Marie Arouet, known by his pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher (philosophe), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and his criticism of Christianity and of slavery, Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.
1776 Adam Smith

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

Adam Smith (baptised 16 June [O.S. 5 June] 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by many as the "father of economics", or the "father of capitalism", he is primarily known for two classic works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is regarded as his magnum opus, marking the inception of modern economic scholarship as a comprehensive system and an academic discipline. Smith refuses to explain the distribution of wealth and power in terms of divine will and instead appeals to natural, political, social, economic, legal, environmental and technological factors, as well as the interactions among them. The work is notable for its contribution to economic theory, particularly in its exposition of the concept of absolute advantage. Born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, he studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at the University of Oxford, where he was one of the only students to benefit from scholarships set up by John Snell. Following his graduation, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at the University of Edinburgh, that met with acclaim. This led to a collaboration with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow, where he taught moral philosophy. During this period, he wrote and published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Subsequently, he assumed a tutoring position that facilitated travel throughout Europe, where he encountered intellectual figures of his era. In response to the prevailing policy of safeguarding national markets and merchants through the reduction of imports and the augmentation of exports, a practice that came to be known as mercantilism, Smith laid the foundational principles of classical free-market economic theory. The Wealth of Nations was a precursor to the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, he developed the concept of division of labour and expounded upon how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity. Smith was controversial in his day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by writers such as Horace Walpole.
1796 Napoleon

Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.

Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and the Middle East during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a statesman, he implemented numerous legal and administrative reforms in France and Europe.
1811 Manuel_Belgrano

Paraguayan forces defeat Manuel Belgrano at the Battle of Tacuarí.

Manuel José Joaquín del Corazón de Jesús Belgrano, usually referred to as Manuel Belgrano, was an Argentine public servant, economist, lawyer, politician, journalist, and military leader. He took part in the Argentine Wars of Independence and designed what became the flag of Argentina. Argentines regard him as one of the main Founding Fathers of the country. He was also a supporter of free trade.
1815 Francis_Ronalds

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

Sir Francis Ronalds was an English scientist and inventor, sometimes described as the first electrical engineer. He was knighted for creating the first working electric telegraph over a substantial distance. In 1816 he laid an 8-mile (13 km) length of iron wire between wooden frames in his mother's garden and sent pulses using electrostatic generators. He also created the first electric clock in 1814.
1841 Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

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.
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party". In 1803, the court asserted the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law.
1842 Giuseppe Verdi

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 Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( VAIR-dee; Italian: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈverdi]; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the modern province of Parma, to a family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron named Antonio Barezzi. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him. He was also strongly influenced by the French Grand opera style, particularly Giacomo Meyerbeer and Gaspare Spontini. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also served briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera Nabucco (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. Macbeth (1847) has been called his first masterpiece. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able to reduce his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He found further fame with the three peaks of his "middle period": Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore and La traviata (both 1853). He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). Verdi's operas remain among the most popular in the repertoire. In 2013, the bicentenary of his birth was widely celebrated around the world with television and radio broadcasts and live performances.
1842 Gold

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

Gold is a chemical element; its chemical symbol is Au and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a bright-metallic-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal, a group 11 element, and one of the noble metals. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements, being the second lowest in the reactivity series, with only platinum ranked as less reactive. Gold is solid under standard conditions.
1847 Mexican–American_War

Mexican–American War: The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S.

history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz.
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, was an invasion of Mexico by the United States. It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory because it refused to recognize the Treaties of Velasco, signed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna after he was captured by the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution. The Republic of Texas was de facto an independent country, but most of its Anglo-American citizens who had moved from the United States to Texas after 1822 wanted to be annexed by the United States.
1862 American Civil War

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.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.
1883 Demonstration of 9 March 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.

The demonstration of 9 March 1883 was an anarchist protest in Paris led by approximately 15,000 unemployed people, carpenters, and workers. Louise Michel, Émile Pouget and Émile Digeon, three notable figures of the anarchist movement, took part. Paule Mink also took part in it, charging the police with a revolver. In addition to causing serious disturbances in the French capital, and narrowly missing the Élysée Palace or the French Interior Ministry, the demonstration is known for Michel's action, where she displayed the black flag, making it a central symbol of the anarchist movement. Following the founding and development of anarchism, which a number of former Communards like Michel joined, this ideology and movement influenced and was joined by a number of workers and artisans, such as carpenters. As the repression against the movement intensified, the Chambre syndicale des menuisiers du bâtiment ('Carpenters' Union of the Building Industry') called for a large demonstration at Les Invalides against poverty and hunger. The French authorities were alarmed by the situation and deployed a significant police presence around Les Invalides, which managed to push back the demonstrators and prevent them from entering the square. Two crowd movements then occurred: one headed towards the Élysée Palace and was repelled only at the last moment, when the Prefect of Police commandeered omnibuses and drove them towards the crowd. On the other side, Michel, who put a black cloth on a broom, thus creating a black flag, and Pouget led a group of a few hundred people who went deep into the Latin Quarter, looting bakeries and shops. Pouget was arrested while fighting to free Michel, who managed to escape and go into hiding. She surrendered to the police a few weeks later, possibly because her mother was ill and she was worried about her. Michel, Pouget, and other anarchists were tried in June 1883; she received six years in prison, and Pouget, eight.
1908 Inter Milan

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

Milan.
Football Club Internazionale Milano, widely referred to as Internazionale (pronounced [internattsjoˈnaːle]) or simply Inter (Italian pronunciation: [ˈinter]), and commonly known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Inter is the only team to have an unbroken presence in the top division of Italian football, currently Serie A, since its debut in 1909, having never been relegated to Serie B. Since 1947, Inter has shared the San Siro stadium, the largest stadium in Italy, with AC Milan, with whom it contests the long-standing Derby della Madonnina, one of the most widely followed rivalries in world football. The club was founded on 9 March 1908 after a split within the Milan Foot-Ball and Cricket Club (now AC Milan), and won its first championship in 1910. Since its formation, the club has won 39 domestic trophies, including 21 league titles, 10 Coppa Italia, and 8 Supercoppa Italiana. From 2006 to 2010, the club won five successive league titles, equaling the all-time record at that time. It has won the European Cup/Champions League three times. Its latest win in 2010 completed an unprecedented Italian seasonal treble, with Inter also winning the Serie A title and the Coppa Italia in the same year. The club has also won three UEFA Cups, two Intercontinental Cups, and one FIFA Club World Cup. Inter has the highest home game attendance in Italy and the fourth-highest attendance in Europe. Since May 2024, the club has been owned by American asset management company Oaktree Capital Management.
1916 Mexican_Revolution

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

The Mexican Revolution was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It saw the destruction of the Federal Army, its replacement by a revolutionary army, and the transformation of Mexican culture and government. The northern Constitutionalist faction prevailed on the battlefield and drafted the present-day Constitution of Mexico, which aimed to create a strong central government. Revolutionary generals held power from 1920 to 1940. The revolutionary conflict was primarily a civil war, but foreign powers, having important economic and strategic interests in Mexico, figured in the outcome of Mexico's power struggles; the U.S. involvement was particularly high. The conflict led to the deaths of around one million people, mostly non-combatants.
1933 Great_Depression

Great Depression: President Franklin D.

Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies.
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was marked by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and business failures around the world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in the United States, the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street crash of 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. Among the countries with the most unemployed were the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Germany.
1942 World_War_II

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, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.
1944 Bombing of Tallinn in World War II

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

During World War II, the Estonian capital Tallinn suffered from many instances of aerial bombing by the Soviet air force and the German Luftwaffe. The first bombings by Luftwaffe occurred during the Summer War of 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa. A number of Soviet bombing missions to then German-occupied Tallinn followed in 1942–1944. The most extensive of Soviet aerial bombing campaign in Tallinn occurred on 9–10 March 1944 and is known as the 1944 March bombing (Estonian: 1944 märtsipommitamine). After Soviet saboteurs had disabled the water supply, over a thousand incendiary bombs were dropped on the city, causing widespread fires and killing 757 people, of whom 586 were civilians and 75 prisoners of war, wounding 659, and leaving over 20,000 people without shelter. The Soviet bombings left a legacy of prolonged anti-Soviet resistance and resentment amongst the civilian population of Estonia.
1945 Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina

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

The Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina, known as Meigō Sakusen (明号作戦, Operation Bright Moon; Chiến dịch Giăng Sáng), was a Japanese operation that took place on 9 March 1945, towards the end of World War II. With Japanese forces losing the war and the threat of an Allied invasion of Indochina imminent, the Japanese were concerned about an uprising against them by French colonial forces. Despite the French having anticipated an attack, the Japanese struck in a military campaign attacking garrisons all over the colony. The French were caught off guard and all of the garrisons were overrun, with some then having to escape to Nationalist China, where they were harshly interned. The Japanese replaced French officials, and effectively dismantled their control of Indochina. The Japanese were then able to install and create a new Empire of Vietnam, Kingdom of Kampuchea and Kingdom of Luang Prabang which under their direction would acquiesce to their military presence and forestall a potential invasion by the Allies.
1945 Allies_of_World_War_II

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

The Allies, or Allied powers, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during World War II (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers. Its principal members were the "Big Four"—the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States, and China.
1946 Bolton_Wanderers_F.C.

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

Bolton Wanderers Football Club is a professional association football club based in the Horwich area of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. The club competes in the EFL Championship, the second tier of the English Football League, in the 2026–27 season following promotion from EFL League One via the play-offs in May 2026.
1954 McCarthyism

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

McCarthyism is a political practice defined by the accusation and investigation of left-wing individuals of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in the United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s, heavily associated with the McCarthy era. After the mid-1950s, U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy, who had spearheaded the campaign, gradually lost his public popularity after several of his accusations were found to be false. The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren made a series of rulings on civil and political rights that overturned several key laws and legislative directives, and helped bring an end to the Second Red Scare. Historians have suggested since the 1980s that as McCarthy's involvement was less central than that of others, a different and more accurate term should be used instead that more accurately conveys the breadth of the phenomenon, and that the term McCarthyism is, in the modern day, outdated. Ellen Schrecker has suggested that Hooverism, after Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) head J. Edgar Hoover, is more appropriate. Following the end of the Cold War, documents revealed Soviet spy activity in the United States, although many of the agents were never properly identified by McCarthy.
1956 Red_Army

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

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often referred by its shortened name as the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War, especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army. In February 1946, the Red Army was renamed the "Soviet Army". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was split between the post-Soviet states, with its bulk becoming the Russian Ground Forces, commonly considered to be the successor of the Soviet Army.
1957 1957 Andreanof Islands earthquake

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

The 1957 Andreanof Islands earthquake occurred at 04:22 local time on March 9 with a moment magnitude estimated at 8.6 and a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). It occurred south of the Andreanof Islands group, which is part of the Aleutian Islands arc. The event occurred along the Aleutian Trench, the convergent plate boundary that separates the Pacific plate and the North American plates near Alaska. A basin-wide tsunami followed, with effects felt in Alaska and Hawaii, and strong waves recorded across the Pacific rim. Total losses were around $5 million (equivalent to $57,316,351 in 2025).
1959 Barbie

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

Barbie is a fashion doll franchise created by American businesswoman Ruth Handler, manufactured by American toy and entertainment company Mattel and introduced on March 9, 1959. The toy was based on the German Bild Lilli doll which Handler had purchased while in Europe. The figurehead of an eponymous brand that includes a range of fashion dolls and accessories, Barbie has been an important part of the toy fashion doll market since its launch. Mattel has sold over a billion Barbie dolls, making it the company's largest and most profitable line. The brand has expanded into a multimedia franchise since 1984, including video games, animated films, television/web series, and a live-action film. Barbie and her male counterpart, Ken, have been described as the two most popular dolls in the world. Mattel generates a large portion of Barbie's revenue through related merchandise – accessories, clothes, friends, and relatives of Barbie. Writing for Journal of Popular Culture in 1977, Don Richard Cox noted that Barbie has a significant impact on social values by conveying characteristics of female independence, and with her multitude of accessories, an idealized upscale lifestyle that can be shared with affluent friends.
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 was an American physician and a pioneer in kidney dialysis.
1961 Korabl-Sputnik_4

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 or Vostok-3KA No.1, also known as Sputnik 9 in the West, was a Soviet spacecraft which was launched on 9 March 1961. Carrying the mannequin Ivan Ivanovich, a dog named Chernushka, some mice and the first guinea pig in space, it was a test flight of the Vostok spacecraft.
1967 Trans_World_Airlines

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 (TWA) was a trunk carrier, a scheduled airline in the United States that operated from 1930 until it was acquired by American Airlines in 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with Ford Trimotors. With American, United, and Eastern, it was one of the "Big Four" domestic airlines in the United States formed by the Spoils Conference of 1930.
1974 Mars_7

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

Mars 7, also known as 3MP No.51P was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1973 to explore Mars. A 3MP bus spacecraft which comprised the final mission of the Mars programme, it consisted of a lander and a coast stage with instruments to study Mars as it flew past. Due to a malfunction, the lander failed to perform a maneuver necessary to enter the Martian atmosphere, missing the planet and remaining in heliocentric orbit along with the coast stage.
1976 1976_Cavalese_cable_car_crash

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

The Cavalese cable car crash is the deadliest cable car crash in history. On 9 March 1976, the steel supporting cable broke as a fully loaded cable car was descending from Mt. Cermis, near the Italian ski resort of Cavalese in the Dolomites, 40 km (25 mi) north-east of Trento. The cause of the disaster was an overlap of the carrier cable with the support cable near the first pylon, which resulted in the carrier shearing the support cable.
1977 1977_Washington,_D.C.,_attack_and_hostage_taking

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

The 1977 Hanafi Siege was a terrorist attack, hostage-taking, and standoff in Washington, D.C., lasting from March 9 to March 11, 1977. Three buildings were seized by twelve Hanafi Movement gunmen, who took 149 hostages. During the initial attack and takeover of the buildings, the assailants killed a journalist and mortally wounded a police officer; three others, including a city councilor, were injured. After a 39-hour standoff, the gunmen surrendered and all remaining hostages were released.
1987 Chrysler

Chrysler announces its acquisition of American Motors Corporation.

FCA US, LLC, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as the Chrysler Corporation, is one of the "Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automotive company Stellantis. Stellantis North America sells vehicles worldwide under the Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram Trucks nameplates. It also includes Mopar, its automotive parts and accessories division, and SRT, its performance automobile division. The division also distributes Alfa Romeo, Fiat, and Maserati vehicles in North America.
1997 Comet_Hale–Bopp

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 is a long-period comet that was one of the most widely observed of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades.
2000 Nupedia

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

Nupedia was a multi-language online encyclopedia whose articles were written by volunteer contributors with relevant subject-matter expertise, reviewed by expert editors before publication, and licensed as free content. It was founded by Jimmy Wales and underwritten by Bomis, with Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief. Nupedia operated from March 2000 until September 2003. It is best known today as the predecessor of Wikipedia. Nupedia had a seven-step approval process to control content of articles before being posted, rather than live wiki-based updating. Nupedia was designed by a committee of experts who predefined the rules. It had 21 articles in its first year, compared with Wikipedia having 200 articles in the first month, and 18,000 in the first year.
2011 Space_Shuttle_Discovery

Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.

Space Shuttle Discovery is a retired American Space Shuttle orbiter. The spaceplane was one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, aggregating more spaceflights than any other spacecraft as of December 2024. The Space Shuttle launch vehicle had three main components: the Space Shuttle orbiter, a single-use central fuel tank, and two reusable solid rocket boosters. Nearly 25,000 heat-resistant tiles cover the orbiter to protect it from high temperatures on re-entry.
2012 2012–2014_Salvadoran_gang_truce

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

From March 2012 to May 2014, the Salvadoran government, the Catholic Church, and the country's two largest criminal gangs — Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street gang — came to a truce, known in El Salvador simply as the Gang Truce, to lower the country's rate of homicides and extortions in exchange for improved prison conditions and certain visitation privileges. The truce's principal negotiators were Minister of Public Security David Munguía Payés, former deputy Raúl Mijango, and Bishop Fabio Reynaldo Colindres Abarca, and the negotiations were overseen by President Mauricio Funes.
2015 Eurocopter_AS350_Écureuil

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.

The Airbus Helicopters H125 Écureuil, or Squirrel, is a single-engine light utility helicopter designed and originally manufactured by the French corporation Aérospatiale, later by Eurocopter, which became Airbus Helicopters. In North America, the H125 is marketed as the AStar. The AS355 Ecureuil 2 is a twin-engine variant, marketed in North America as the TwinStar.
2020 Giuseppe_Conte

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 is an Italian jurist, academic, and politician who served as prime minister of Italy from June 2018 to February 2021. He has been the president of the Five Star Movement (M5S) since August 2021.
2023 2023_Hamburg_shooting

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

On 9 March 2023, a mass shooting occurred at a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall in the Alsterdorf quarter of Hamburg, Germany. The shooter, identified as 35-year-old Philipp Fusz, entered the building after a service was held there and opened fire, killing six people and injuring eight others, before killing himself minutes later. One of the fatalities was pregnant, leading to the foetus's loss. Fusz was a former member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, had no previous criminal record, and was not a known extremist. Police received an anonymous letter indicating he was angry at Witnesses and his former employer, which may help them determine a motive.

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