Today in History....March 9

On this day in …

* 1796, the future emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, married Josephine de Beauharnais. (The couple divorced in 1809.)

* 1907, Indiana's General Assembly passed America's first involuntary sterilization law, one that was aimed at "confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles, and rapists" in state custody. (More than 30 states ended up passing compulsory sterilization laws that were eventually overturned or repealed.)

* 1916, Mexican raiders led by Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, N.M., killing 18 Americans

* 1933, Congress, called into special session by President Roosevelt, began its 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation

* 1945, during World War II, U.S. B-29 bombers launched bomb attacks against Japan, resulting in an estimated 100,000 deaths

* 1954, CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow critically reviewed Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy's anti-Communism campaign on an episode of "See It Now"

* 1977, about a dozen armed Hanafi practitioners of that "religion of peace" invaded three buildings in Washington, killing one person and taking more than 130 hostages. The siege ended two days later

* 1987, Chrysler Corp. announced it had agreed to buy the financially ailing American Motors Corp.

* 2002, the space shuttle Columbia's astronauts released the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit after five days of repairs. ALSO: Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the 1960s black power radical formerly known as H.
Rap Brown, was convicted of murder in the shooting death of a sheriff's deputy in Atlanta. (Al-Amin was sentenced to life without
parole.)

* 2006, bowing to ferocious opposition in Congress, a Dubai-owned company relinquished its quest to take over operations at U.S. ports