TODAY in HISTORY
Today is Friday, March 9, the 68th day of 2018. There are 297 days left in the year.
1230 Bulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirus in the Battle of Klokotnitsa. 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. 1566 David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland. 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 committed suicide. 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. 1862 American Civil War: The USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships. 1896 Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns following the Italian defeat at the Battle of Adwa. 1908 Milan was founded on Football Club Internazionale, following a schism from the Milan Cricket and Football Club. 1933 Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies.
1945 World War II: The first nocturnal incendiary attack on Tokyo inflicts damage comparable to that inflicted on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki five months later.
1959 The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
1977 The Hanafi Siege: In a thirty- nine- hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D. C., buildings, killing two and taking 149 hostage. 1978 President Soeharto inaugurated Jagorawi Toll Road, the first toll highway in Indonesia, connecting Jakarta, Bogor and Ciawi, West Java.
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. 2011 Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.
2012 At least 130 rockets are fired into Israel from Gaza; 12 Palestinians militants are killed as part of the latest escalation in violence in the region.