March 9

On This Day In History
	1831: Creation of French Foreign Legion The Foreign Legion, whose unofficial motto is "Legio patria nostra" ("The legion is our fatherland"), was founded this day in 1831 by King Louis-Philippe as an aid in controlling French colonial possessions in Africa.
Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion parading in Paris on Bastille Day, 1995
Biography Of The Day
	Francisco Bayeu Francisco Bayeu, considered by his contemporaries to be the finest Spanish painter of their period and who was greatly influenced by Anton Raphael Mengs and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, was born this day in 1734.
The Painter Francisco Bayeu, oil painting by Francisco de Goya
More Events On This Day In History
	1975 Belgian novelist and poet Marie Gevers, who wrote works that evoked Kempenland, a rural area in which she spent most of her life, died.
1945	1945 The U.S. Army Air Forces bombed Tokyo with napalm, causing fires that destroyed a quarter of the city and killed some 80,000 civilians.
	1943 American chess master Bobby Fischer was born in Chicago.
	1930 American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Ornette Coleman was born in Fort Worth, Texas.
1916	1916 Pancho Villa's men killed more than a dozen in a raid on Columbus, New Mexico.
	1862 The Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, a duel between ironclads during the American Civil War, marked the beginning of a new era of naval warfare.
	1454 Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence.
	432 The Parthenon was consecrated in Athens.