On this day: Graham Bell filed patent for first telephone | Public kissing banned in Naples

Published on 09/03/2013 00:00

Significant events, birthdays and anniversaries from 9 March

9 March

1562: Kissing in public was banned in Naples, contravention being punishable by death.

1776: Foundation of modern economics, with publication of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, written in Kirkcaldy by Adam Smith.

1796: Napoleon married Josephine. Both parties gave their ages as 28, although Bonaparte was 27 and she was nudging 33.

1802: The upright piano was patented by Thomas Loud.

1831: The French Foreign Legion was founded by King Louis Philippe, with headquarters at Sidi-bel-Abbes in Algeria.

1846: Treaty of Lahore ended first Sikh War in India, whereby Britain gained additional territory.

1876: Graham Bell filed patent for the first telephone – only three hours ahead of a similar one by Elisha Gray.

1915: Defence of the Realm Act was passed.

1916: Pancho Villa led his famous raid into New Mexico, killing 17 Americans.

1932: Pu-yi, the Chinese boy-emperor deposed in 1912, was installed by Japanese as head of puppet state of Manchuria.

1946: Thirty-three football fans died and more than 400 were injured when crash barriers collapsed at Burnden Park, before an FA Cup match between Bolton Wanderers and Stoke City.

1959: A doll named Barbara Millicent Roberts – Barbie for short – was exhibited at the New York toy fair.

1974: Britain returned to a five-day working week, having been on three days since December, 1973, to conserve fuel restricted by Arab-Israeli war.

1990: National Union of Mineworkers’ executive ordered independent inquiry into alleged financial irregularities by Arthur Scargill and others.

1994: IRA terrorists launched mortar-bomb attack on Heathrow Airport. All the missiles failed to explode.

1995: The Queen visited Northern Ireland for the first time since the IRA and loyalist ceasefires were announced.

2009: YouTube owner Google began to pull music videos from the video-sharing website due to a row over licensing.

2010: The Northern Ireland Assembly agreed to devolved policing and justice powers.

2012: Labour MP Eric Joyce was fined £3,000 and banned from pubs for three months after he admitted assaulting politicians in a House of Commons bar.

BIRTHDAYS

Juliette Binoche, actress, 49; Bill Beaumont CBE, rugby player and broadcaster, 61; John Cale OBE, musician (Velvet Underground), 71; Ornette Coleman, jazz saxophonist, 83; Linda Fiorentino, actress, 53; Martin Fry, singer (ABC), 55; Martin Johnson CBE, rugby player and coach, 43, David Matthews, composer, 70; Howard Shelley OBE, pianist and conductor, 63; Robin Trower, guitarist (Procul Harum), 68.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1454 Amerigo Vespucci, Italian navigator and explorer; 1881 Ernest Bevin, union leader and Labour politician; 1890 Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet political leader; 1892 Vita Sackville-West, novelist, poet; 1934 Yuri Gagarin, first man in space; 1943 Bobby Fischer, world chess champion 1972-75.

Deaths: 1566 David Rizzio, confidential secretary to Queen Mary; 1747 Simon Fraser, 12th Baron Lovat, Jacobite; 1992 Menachim Begin, former Israeli prime minister; 1996 George Burns, comedian/actor.