Today in History - History - April 9th

197951st Academy Awards - "Deer Hunter", Jon Voight & Jane Fonda win

1866Civil Rights Bill passes over President Andrew Johnson's veto

193Septimius Severus is proclaimed Roman Emperor by the army in Illyricum (in the Balkans).

1959Bill Sharman hits a NBA record 56 consecutive foul shot

1978Denver's David Thompson scores 73 points & San Antonio's George Gervin scores 63 points in separate NBA games (33 in 1 quarter)

1963Winston Churchill becomes 1st honorary US citizen

1968Martin Luther King Jr., buried in Atlanta

2002Funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at Westminster Abbey UK. More than a million people line the streets

1989Rickey Henderson steals his 800th career base in NY's 4-3 loss to Clev

196234th Academy Awards - "West Side Story", Sophia Loren & Maximillian Schell win

1966Cynthia Nixon, NYC, actress (Addams Family Values, Pelican Brief)

1957Severiano Ballesteros, Pedrena Spain, golfer (British Open 1979, 84, 88)

1990Kristen Stewart, Los Angeles, California, American actress (Bella Swan-The Twilight Saga)

1898[Earl] Curly Lambeau, Green Bay Wisconsin, NFL coach (GB Packers)

1953Biologist Alexander Fleming (34) weds doctor Amalia Koutsouri-Vourekas (41)

1964Serial killer John Wayne Gacy (22) weds co-worker Marlynn Myers

1981NFL coach Bill Cowher (23) weds Kaye Young

1913US Admiral Chester Nimitz (28) weds Catherine Freeman (21) in Wollaston, Massachusetts

1966Sophia Loren marries married Carlo Ponti in Paris

1912Detective writer Erle Stanley Gardner (22) weds Natalie Talbert

1765Maria Louise van Hessen-Kassel, princess of Orange-Nassau, dies at 77

1626Francis Bacon, English statesman and philosopher, dies from pneumonia at 65