June 9
1064 - Coimbra, Portugal fell to Ferdinand, the King of Castile.
1534 - Jacques Cartier became the first to sail into the river he named Saint Lawrence.
1790 - John Barry copyrighted "Philadelphia Spelling Book." It was the first American book to be copyrighted.
1790 - Civil war broke out in Martinique.
1860 - The Ms. Ann Stevens book "Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter" was offered for sale for a dime. It was the first published "dime novel."
1861 - Mary Ann "Mother" Bickerdyke began working in Union hospitals.
1923 - Bulgaria's government was overthrown by the military.
1931 - Robert H. Goddard patented a rocket-fueled aircraft design.
1934 - Donald Duck made his debut in the Silly Symphonies cartoon "The Wise Little Hen."
1940 - Norway surrendered to the Nazis during World War II.
1943 - The withholding tax on payrolls was authorized by the U.S. Congress.
1945 - Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki declared that Japan would fight to the last rather than accept unconditional surrender.
1946 - Mel Ott (with the New York Giants) became the first manager to be ejected from a doubleheader (both games).
1959 - The first ballistic missile carrying submarine, the USS George Washington, was launched.
1965 - Michel Jazy ran the mile in 3 minutes, 53.6 seconds. He broke the record set by Peter Snell in 1964.
1973 - Secretariat won the 105th Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths and ran the fastest 1 1/2 miles on dirt at 2:24.
1978 - Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints struck down a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men from the Mormon priesthood.
1980 - Richard Pryor was severely burned by a "free-base" mixture that exploded. He was hospitalized more than two months.
1985 - Thomas Sutherland, an American educator, was kidnapped in Lebanon. He was not released until November 1991.
1986 - The Rogers Commission released a report on the Challenger disaster. The report explained that the spacecraft blew up as a result of a failure in a solid rocket booster joint.
1999 - NATO and Yugoslavia signed a peace agreement over Kosovo.
2000 - Canada and the United States signed a border security agreement. The agreement called for the establishment of a border-enforcement team.
2000 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal gift and estate taxes. The bill called for the taxes to be phased out over 10 years.
2001 - Patrick Roy (Colorado Avalanche) became the first National Hockey League (NHL) player to win three Conn Smythe Trophies. The award is given to the playoff's Most Valuable Player.
2011 - The world's first artificial organ transplant was performed. It was an artificial windpipe coated with stem cells.
