History of the Day for:
March 9
- 1796: Napoleon Bonaparte married Josephine de Beauharnais.
- 1822: Charles M. Graham was granted a patent for his invention of artificial teeth.
- 1832Abraham Lincoln of New Salem, Ill., announced that he would run for political office for the first time.
- 1862: During the Civil War, the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS-Virginia (formerly Merrimac) clashed for five hours, to a draw, in the Battle of Hampton Roads.
- 1916: Pancho Villa led a Mexican band in a raid on Columbus, N.M., killing more than 12 people.
- 1933: Congress was called into special session by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and began its "100 days" of enacting New Deal legislation.
- 1942: The construction of the Alaska oil pipeline began.
- 1944: World War II: Japanese troops counter-attack American forces on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that would last five days.
- 1945: U.S. B-29 bombers launched bomb attacks on Japan, causing widespread devastation. In Tokyo, at least 120,000 people died.
- 1954: CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow critically reviewed Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's anti-Communism campaign on "See It Now."
- 1954: WNBT?TV (now WNBC-TV), New York, broadcast the first local color television commercialfor Castro Decorators.
- 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.
- 1987: Chrysler Corp. offered to buy American Motors Corp. for $1 billion.
- 1990: Dr. Antonia Novello was sworn in as surgeon general, becoming the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the job.
- 1992: Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin died in Tel Aviv at age 78.
- 1996: Comedian George Burns died in Beverly Hills, California, just weeks after turning 100.
- 1997: Gangsta rapper The Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace, was killed in a still-unsolved drive-by shooting in Los Angeles; he was 24.