March 9, 1961 (Thursday)
- Sputnik 9 was launched by the USSR from Baikonur LC1, carrying "Ivan Ivanovich" (a dummy cosmonaut), the dog Chernushka, mice, and a guinea pig. The spaceship made several orbits of the Earth at an average altitude of 135 miles, and then was recovered. NASA spokesman George M. Law said that the test showed that the Russians were "about ready to put a man up".
- An underground fire at the Ueda Mine Company in Japan's worst coal mine disaster since World War II killed 71 miners at the Ueda Mine Company at Kawara.
- Born: Andrei Ivanţoc, Moldovan politician, in Opaci; and Rick Steiner, American pro wrestler, as Robert Rechsteiner in Bay City, Michigan
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Famous quotes containing the word march:
“The blue and the gray. Let us march together beneath the star- spangled banner.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)