Today in History, 3/9

1566: David Rizzio, the private secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots is stabbed 57 times and thrown down a flight of stairs by persons under the employ of her husband, Lord Darnley. Jealousy was the motive, but it has been alleged that this was part of an overall campaign by Queen Elizabeth I to destabilize the Scottish throne.
1776: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith is published.1796: Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine de Beauharnais.1841: The Supreme Court rules that the Africans who had rebelled aboard the Amistad had been taken captive illegally.
1862: During the Civil War, the first battle between ironclad warships take place. A five-hour battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia results in a draw.1916: Pancho Villa leads 1,500 Mexicans in an attack against Columbus, NM, killing 17.
1918: George Lincoln Rockwell, founder and leader of the American Nazi Party, is born. The corncob pipe is an attempt to emulate Douglas MacArthur.1918: Mickey Spillane is born.
1932: The first Ford Flathead engine leaves the assembly line. It Ford's first V8 engine intended for production-line cars.
1933: During the Great Depression, Congress begins its first 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation.
1934: Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space and the first to orbit the Earth, is born.1935: Hitler announces the creation of a new air force.
1940: Raul Julia is born. He was in MST3K episode Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. The movie is terrible, but Raul gives it his best shot.1943: Bobby Fischer, chess master, is born.
1945: During WWII, American B-29 bombers drop incendiary bombs of Tokyo, killing over 100,000 people.
1959: The Barbie doll premieres.

1960: Linda Fiorentino is born.1961: Camryn Manheim is born.1965: Brian Bosworth is born. I guess he played football or something, but I remember him best as the hero of the just awful action movie Stone Cold.
1971: Emmanuel Lewis, star of Webster, is born.
1975: Construction of the Alaskan Pipeline begins.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.