Today in History - History - March 9th

1765After a public 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 had actually committed suicide.

1936Babe Ruth turns down Reds to make a comeback as a player

1933Congress is called into special session by FDR, & began its "100 days"

1842Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Nabucco" premieres in Milan

1844Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Hernani" premieres in Venice

1951Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam submit a classified paper at the Los Alamos lab, in which they proposed their revolutionary new design, staged implosion, for a practical megaton-range hydrogen bomb

2002Joe Sakic plays his 1,000th career game

1997Steve Elkington wins Doral-Ryder Golf Open

1935Adolf Hitler announces the creation of a new air force.

1993Rodney King in court says he thinks he heard cops yell racial slurs

1930Ornette Coleman, Fort Worth, Texas, American jazz composer (Downbeat Musician of Year 1966)

1943Bobby Fischer, US, world chess champion (1972-75)

1934Yuri Gagarin, Russia, cosmonaut, 1st man into space (aboard Vostok 1)

1891Jose Paciano Laurel y Garcia, Tanuan Batangas, 3rd Philippine president

2012Rock 'n' roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis (76) weds his cousin's ex Judith Brown (62) in Natchez, Mississippi

1796French Leader Napoléon Bonaparte (26) marries 1st wife Joséphine de Beauharnais (32), changing her name from Rose

1706Johann Pachelbel, German organist/composer, dies at 52

479 BCConfucius, Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history, dies at 66 (b. 551 BC)

1851Hans Christian Oersted, Danish physicist, dies at 73

1992Menachem Begin, PM Israel (1977-80, 81-83, Nobel 1979), dies at 85