Explore 9 March

Explore 9 March: two ironclads fight to a standstill at Hampton Roads, the Supreme Court frees the Amistad captives, Barbie makes her debut and a dog named Chernushka orbits the Earth. Meet Yuri Gagarin, Bobby Fischer and Taras Shevchenko, born on this date.

This day through time →11 verified events across 3 eras

⌛11Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙7Born
Today ✦6Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ☆1Sporting
Moments ♫2Culture
Stories

The Monitor and the Merrimac (CSS Virginia) at Hampton Roads, in a Currier & Ives print of 1862.

Image credit

Currier & Ives · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1862

The first battle between ironclad warships

On 8 March 1862 the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia, rebuilt from the scuttled USS Merrimack, rammed and sank the wooden warship Cumberland at Hampton Roads, Virginia. That night the Union’s new turreted ironclad, USS Monitor, arrived from New York.

On the morning of 9 March the two iron ships fought for about four hours, often at close range, but neither could sink the other. It was the first fight between ironclads, and it made the world’s wooden navies obsolete.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Naval History and Heritage Command: Battle of Hampton Roads ↗

A broadside of 1839 with a portrait of Joseph Cinqué (Sengbe Pieh), leader of the revolt on the Amistad.

Image credit

Moses Yale Beach, portrait probably by James or Isaac Sheffield · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1841

The Supreme Court frees the Amistad Africans

In 1839 Africans kidnapped from the region of Sierra Leone and shipped to Cuba rose up aboard the Spanish schooner Amistad. The ship ended up off Long Island, and the captives were jailed in Connecticut while Spain demanded their return.

On 9 March 1841 the US Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Joseph Story, ruled that they had never been lawful property and were free. The survivors sailed home to Africa in 1842.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Library of Congress: United States v. The Amistad, 40 U.S. 518 (1841) ↗

Puyi during the Manchukuo period.

Image credit

Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1932

Puyi becomes head of Japan’s puppet state

On 9 March 1932 Puyi, who had been the last emperor of China as a small boy, was installed as ‘Chief Executive’ of Manchukuo, the state Japan had created in north-east China after seizing Manchuria. The ceremony took place in Changchun, renamed Hsinking as the new capital.

Real power lay with the Japanese army. In 1934 Puyi was enthroned as emperor of Manchukuo, which collapsed when the Soviet Union invaded in August 1945.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Academy of Chinese Studies (Chinese Culture): Puyi and Manchukuo ↗

Archbishop Makarios in New York, 1962.

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Orlando Fernandez, New York World-Telegram and the Sun · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1956

Britain deports Archbishop Makarios

On 9 March 1956 British officials in Cyprus seized Archbishop Makarios, the leader of the Greek Cypriot campaign for union with Greece, at Nicosia airport as he was about to board a flight. Talks with the governor, Sir John Harding, had broken down amid an armed campaign by the EOKA movement.

Makarios and three companions were sent into exile in the Seychelles. He was released a year later, and in 1960 he became the first president of an independent Cyprus.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: UK Parliament Hansard: Cyprus (deportations), 12 March 1956 ↗

♙

PEOPLE

Born Today

Image credit

Andrey Denyer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1814

Taras Shevchenko

Ukraine’s national poet and a painter, born a serf (25 February Old Style).

Image credit

G. Weil for TASS · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1890

Vyacheslav Molotov

Soviet foreign minister under Stalin who signed the 1939 pact with Nazi Germany (25 February Old Style).

Image credit

NBC Television · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1918

Mickey Spillane

American crime writer who created the detective Mike Hammer.

Image credit

Frank Schindelbeck · CC BY-SA 3.0 deResized and cropped for display.

Born 1930

Ornette Coleman

American saxophonist who pioneered free jazz.

Image credit

Aleksandr Mokletsov (Sovinformburo) · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1934

Yuri Gagarin

Soviet cosmonaut who became the first person in space in 1961.

Image credit

Bert Verhoeff for Anefo · CC0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1943

Bobby Fischer

American chess player who won the world championship in 1972.

Image credit

Elena Ternovaja · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1964

Juliette Binoche

French actress of Three Colours: Blue and The English Patient.

◉

IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

A Soviet stamp of 1961 honouring the flight of the dog Chernushka.

Image credit

Post of the Soviet Union · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1961

Chernushka the dog rehearses the first human spaceflight

On 9 March 1961 the Soviet Union launched a Vostok spacecraft carrying a dog called Chernushka, along with mice, a guinea pig and a life-size dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich. The craft made a single orbit of the Earth and landed safely, and the dummy was ejected to test the seat.

The flight, known in the West as Sputnik 9, was a rehearsal. A month later, on 12 April, Yuri Gagarin made the same journey and became the first person in space.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive: Korabl-Sputnik 4 ↗

☆

SPORTING HISTORY

Sporting Moments

San Siro stadium in Milan during an Inter match, 2019.

Image credit

Vincenzo.togni · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

1908

Internazionale is founded in Milan

On the evening of 9 March 1908 a group of members who had broken away from the Milan Football and Cricket Club met at the Orologio restaurant near Milan’s cathedral and founded Football Club Internazionale. They wanted a club open to foreign players as well as Italians, hence the name.

The painter Giorgio Muggiani chose black and blue as the club’s colours. Inter went on to win the European Cup three times.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: FC Internazionale Milano: 9 March 1908 ↗

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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

Ruth Handler of Mattel with a collection of Barbie dolls, 1961.

Image credit

Los Angeles Times (photographer unknown), restored by Adam Cuerden · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

1959

Barbie makes her debut

On 9 March 1959 the toy company Mattel showed a new doll at the American International Toy Fair in New York. Ruth Handler, one of Mattel’s founders, had noticed her daughter Barbara playing with paper dolls of grown-up women, and named the doll Barbie after her.

The first Barbie wore a black-and-white striped swimsuit and came as a blonde or a brunette. She became one of the best-selling toys ever made.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: When did Barbie make her debut? ↗

Adam Smith, ‘the author of the Wealth of Nations’, in an engraving by John Kay, 1790.

Image credit

John Kay · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1776

Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations

On 9 March 1776 the London publishers William Strahan and Thomas Cadell brought out An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, in two large volumes, by the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith.

Smith argued that the division of labour and free exchange, guided by self-interest, made nations rich. The first edition sold out in about six months, and the book became a founding text of modern economics.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Adam Smith Works (Liberty Fund): Glasgow Edition, editor’s introduction ↗

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LIVES REMEMBERED