[drum solo]

Here is your open thread for March 9, 2020.

Today would have been Ronald Lee Wilson’s 76th birthday (Wilson died of a brain aneurysm in 1989.) You may not know that name, but you’re familiar with Wilson’s most famous work on the drums:

Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was published 244 years ago today. In honor of that sacred text of capitalism, let’s check in with the stock market to see how … [press play on video above].

Coincidentally, March 9 was also the day, in 1933, that Franklin D. Roosevelt submitted his Emergency Banking Act to Congress. (Both houses of Congress passed it and it was signed into law that same day because Mitch McConnell hadn’t been born yet and government still worked.)

The case of United States v. The Amistad was decided on March 9, 1841, allowing white evangelicals 179 years later to pretend we’re all Lewis Tappan.

March 9 is the birthday of Amerigo Vespucci. He should be most remembered — if at all — as the cousin of a supermodel, but the guy had a knack for self-promotion and managed to get his name attached to two whole continents.

The Jesuit St. Aloysius Gonzaga was born on March 9, 1568, which may be why March is usually a good month for Gonzaga. He died just 23 years later while caring for the victims of an epidemic. (Uncomfortable pause.)

Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, was born March 9, 1934.

Today is Barbie’s birthday. The iconic, not-quite human-shaped doll was first introduced on this day in 1959.

Jeffrey Osborne turns 72 today. Philly-born femme fatale Linda Fiorentino turns, maybe, 60? (If you haven’t seen The Last Seduction or Dogma, you should.) Juliet Binoche turns 56. (If you haven’t seen Kiezlowski’s Three Colors, you should.) Oscar Isaac, who played Detective Fartman in Lenny the Wonder Dog, turns 41.

Talk amongst yourselves.