April 9
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Featured Event
Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
The Astrodome’s historic opening night
The Houston Astros won the first Major League Baseball game ever played indoors, beating the New York Yankees at the newly opened Astrodome in Houston, Texas, on this day in 1966. The idea for the world’s first air-conditioned indoor stadium is credited to Roy Mark Hofheinz, Houston’s mayor from 1953 to 1955. He decided that his hot and humid city needed a comfortable setting for watching sports, and the result was the Eighth Wonder of the World. (That was its nickname, at least.) [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
© Michael Hynes
Born this day in 1918, Danish architect Jørn Utzon is best known for his dynamic, imaginative, but problematic design for Australia’s most famous building, the Sydney Opera House, a combination of lightness and monumentality.
Famous Birthdays
More on April 9
© Anwar Hussein/Getty Images
2005
Charles, prince of Wales, married Camilla Parker Bowles. They would become king and queen of Britain nearly two decades later. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about English royalty.]
Ali Heider/AP Images
2003
Baghdad fell to U.S.-led forces, several weeks after the start of the Iraq War. U.S. President George W. Bush argued the conflict was necessary so as to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, due to his regime’s supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction and support of terrorist groups.
© MKPhoto/stock.adobe.com
2001
American Airlines officially completed its acquisition of Trans World Airlines and became the world’s largest airline. [Take our aircraft and air travel quiz.]
Karsh/Woodfin Camp and Associates
1963
An act of Congress conferred honorary U.S. citizenship on Sir Winston Churchill. [Test your knowledge of famous people in history.]
Carl Van Vechten/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-ppmsca-10452)
1939
Contralto Marian Anderson gave a concert to an Easter Sunday crowd of 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., because she was Black. [How much do you know about music?]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1898
Paul Robeson, a celebrated singer, actor, and political activist who was one of the preeminent figures of American theater in the early 20th century, was born in Princeton, New Jersey.
North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy
1865
General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia of the Confederate States of America, signed a treaty of surrender at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the American Civil War. [Test your knowledge of the American Civil War.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Jan Van Vianen (neg. no. LC-USZ62-3283)
1682
René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, claimed the Mississippi River basin for France, naming it Louisiana. [Take our quiz about human exploration and discovery.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1388
The Battle of Näfels culminated in a major victory for the Swiss Confederation in the first century of its struggle for self-determination against Habsburg overlordship. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about European history.]