March 9

1971 ~ Emmanuel Lewis, American actor.  He is best known for playing the title character in the television sit-com, Webster.

1964 ~ Juliette Binoche, French actress.

1959 ~ Takaai Kajita, Japanese physicist and recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics.

1958 ~ Linda Fiorentino (née Clorinda Fiorentino), American actress.

1954 ~ Bobby Sands (né Robert Gerard Sands, d. May 5, 1981), Irish activist.  He died in the Long Kesh prison following a 66-day hunger strike.  He was 27 years old.

1944 ~ Paul C.P. McIlhenny (d. Feb. 23, 2013), American businessman from Avery Island, Louisiana whose family owned the McIlhenny Tabasco Sauce company.  He died just over a week before his 69^th birthday.

1943 ~ Bobby Fischer (né Robert James Fischer, d. Jan. 17, 2008), American chess player.  He died of renal failure at age 64.

1941 ~ Ernesto Miranda (d. Jan. 31, 1976), American criminal who was convicted of kidnap, rape and armed robbery based on his confession under police interrogation.  He was the Miranda in the United States Supreme Court Case, Miranda v. Arizona, which ruled that criminal suspects must be informed of their Constitutional rights.  This case set the police standard of reading arrestees their Constitutional rights.  He was stabbed to death in a bar fight at age 34.

1940 ~ Raúl Juliá (d. Oct. 24, 1994), Puerto Rican actor.  He is best known for his role in Kiss of the Spider Woman.  He died at age 54 of a stroke.

1936 ~ Marty Ingels (né Martin Ingerman, d. Oct. 21, 2015), American wild comic who wed a Hollywood star, Shirley Jones.  He died of a stroke at age 79.

1934 ~ Yuri Gagarin (d. Mar. 27, 1968), Soviet cosmonaut and first human in space.  He was later killed in a test flight, just 13 days after his 34^th birthday.

1930 ~ Ornette Coleman (né Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman, d. June 11, 2015), African-American alto saxophonist and composer.  He was a musical maverick who revolutionized Jazz.  He died of cardiac arrest at age 85.

1928 ~ Peggy Charren (née Peggy Sundelle Waltzer, d. Jan. 22, 2015), American activist who campaigned for quality children’s television.  She was the founder of Action for Children’s Television.  She died in Denham, Massachusetts at age 86.

1926 ~ Joe Franklin (né Joseph Fortgang, d. Jan. 24, 2015), American radio and television talk show host who bantered 300,000 guests.  He died at age 88 of prostate cancer.

1923 ~ Walter Kohn (d. Apr. 19, 2016), Austrian-born physicist and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 93.

1918 ~ Mickey Spillane (né Frank Morrison Spillane, d. July 17, 2006), American author of detective novels and actor.  He died at age 88.

1892 ~ Vita Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson (née Victoria Mary Sackville-West, d. June 2, 1962), English writer.  She died of cancer at age 70.

1824 ~ Amasa Leland Stanford (d. June 21, 1893), American businessman and founder of Stanford University in California, which he named after his son, Leland, who died at age 15.  He served as the 8^th Governor of California from January 1862 through December 1863.  He was also a United States senator from California.  He died of heart failure at age 69.

1820 ~ Samuel Blatchford (d. July 7, 1893), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Chester Arthur.  He served on the Court from March 1882 until his death 11 years later.  He died at age 73.

1815 ~ David Davis (d. June 26, 1886), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Abraham Lincoln.  He served on the Court from October 1862 until March 1877.  He went on to be elected a United States Senator from Illinois and became the President pro tempore of the United States Senate.  He died at age 71.

1749 ~ Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau (d. Apr. 2, 1791), French journalist and politician who played a role in the French revolution.  He died of illness at age 42.

1454 ~ Amerigo Vespucci (d. Feb. 22, 1512), Italian explorer, navigator and cartographer.  The continents of North and South America were named after him.  He died 15 days before his 58^th birthday.

Events that Changed the World:

2011 ~ The Space Shuttle Discovery made its final landing after 39 flights.

1990 ~ Dr. Antonia Novello (b. 1944) was sworn in as the 14^th Surgeon General of the United States.  She was the first woman to serve in that position.  She served in that position under both President George WH Bush and President Bill Clinton from March 9, 1990 until June 1993.

1989 ~ Eastern Air Lines filed for bankruptcy.

1977 ~ Armed Hanafi Muslims seized three buildings in Washington, D.C., during a 39-hour standoff.  149 hostages were taken and two people were killed before the siege was over.

1960 ~ Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner (1921 ~ 2003) invented a shunt that would allow a patient to receive hemodialysis on a regular basis.  The shunt was implanted for the first time on this date.

1959 ~ The Barbie doll, created by Ruth Handler (1916 ~ 2002), made its debut.

1957 ~ An 8.3 magnitude earthquake hit the Andreanof Islands off Alaska.  This caused a huge Pacific-wide tsunami that caused extensive damage to the Hawaiian Islands.

1945 ~ The United States Army Air Forces began the Bombing of Tokyo, which was one of the most destructive bombing raids of World War II.

1944 ~ Soviet Air Forces conducted heavy bombing on Tallinn, Estonia.  757 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the attack.

1842 ~ The first documented discovery of gold in California occurred 6 years before California Gold Rush when gold was found at Ranch San Francisco.

1796 ~ Napoléon Bonaparte (1769 ~ 1821) married his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763 ~ 1814).

Good-byes:

2014 ~ William Clay Ford, Sr. (b. Mar. 14, 1925), the last surviving grandchild of Henry Ford, William Clay Ford was the executive who kept the Fords in the Ford Motor Company.  He died five days before his 89^th birthday.

2011 ~ David Salzer Broder (b. Sept. 11, 1929), American courtly dean of Washington’s press corps.  He died of complications from diabetes at age 81.

2006 ~ John Dennis Profumo, 5^th Baron Profomo (b. Jan. 30, 1915), British Secretary of State for War.  He was caught in a sex scandal in the 1960s.  He died of a stroke at age 91.

1996 ~ George Burns (né Nathan Birmbaum, b. Jan. 20, 1896), American actor and comedian.  He died at age 100.

1993 ~ Max August Zorn (b. June 6, 1906), German mathematician.  He died of congestive heart failure at age 86.

1992 ~ Menachem Began (b. Aug 16. 1913) 6^th Israeli Prime Minister and recipient of the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.  He served as Prime Minister from June 1977 until October 1983.  He died of a heart attack at age 78.

1989 ~ Robert Mapplethorpe (b. Nov. 4, 1946), American photographer and artist.  He died of AIDS at age 42 in Boston, Massachusetts.

1983 ~ Ulf Svante von Euler (b. Feb. 7, 1905), Swedish physiologist and recipient of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He died about a month after his 78^th birthday.

1981 ~ Max Delbrück (b. Sept. 4, 1906), German biologist and recipient of the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work with bacteriophages.  He died at age 74.

1974 ~ Earl Wilber Sutherland, Jr. (b. Nov. 19, 1915), American physiologist and pharmacologist.  He was the recipient of the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He died of complications from an esophageal hemorrhage at age 58.

1955 ~ Matthew Henson (b. Aug. 8, 1866), African-American explorer who accompanied Robert Peary on his expedition to the North Pole.  He died at age 88.

1947 ~ Carrie Chapman Catt (b. Jan. 9, 1859), American women’s suffrage leader and founder of the League of Women Voters.  She died at age 88.

1917 ~ Agnes Sime Baxter (b. Mar. 18, 1870), Canadian mathematician.  She earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University.  She was only the 4^th woman in North America to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics.  She died following a long illness 9 days before her 47^th birthday.

1847 ~ Mary Anning (b. May 21, 1799), British paleontologist.  She died at age 47 of breast cancer.