What Happened This Day In History - February 9

February 9

1567		Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in his sick-bed in a house in Edinburgh when the house blows up.
1799		The USS Constellation captures the French frigate Insurgente off the West Indies.
1825		The House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams, sixth U.S. President.
1861		Jefferson F. Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.
1864		Union General George Armstrong Custer marries Elizabeth Bacon in their hometown of Monroe, Mich.
1904		Japanese troops land near Seoul, Korea, after disabling two Russian cruisers.
1909		France agrees to recognize German economic interests in Morocco in exchange for political supremacy.
1916		Conscription begins in Great Britain as the Military Service Act becomes effective.
1922		The U.S. Congress establishes the World War Foreign Debt Commission.
1942		Chiang Kai-shek meets with Sir Stafford Cripps, the British viceroy in India.
1943		The Red Army takes back Kursk 15 months after it fell to the Germans.
1946		Stalin announces the new five-year plan for the Soviet Union, calling for production boosts of 50 percent.
1951		Actress Greta Garbo gets U.S. citizenship.
1953		The French destroy six Viet Minh war factories hidden in the jungles of Vietnam.
1964		The U.S. embassy in Moscow is stoned by Chinese and Vietnamese students.
1978		Canada expels 11 Soviets in spying case.
1994		Nelson Mandela becomes the first black president of South Africa.
Born on February 9
1773		William Henry Harrison, ninth U.S. President and the first to die in office.
1814		Samuel Tilden, philanthropist.
1819		Lydia E. Pinkham, patent-medicine maker and entrepeneur.
1846		William Maybach, German engineer, designed the first Mercedes automobile.
1871		Howard T. Ricketts, pathologist.
1874		Amy Lowell, poet.
1880		James Stephens, Irish writer (The Charwoman’s Daughter, The Crock of Gold).
1909		Dean Rusk, Secretary of State under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
1923		Brendan Behan, Irish playwright and poet (The Hostage, The Quare Fellow).
1944		Alice Walker, Pulitzer prize winning author (The Color Purple).