Preparedness Notes for Thursday — March 9, 2023
On this day in 1862 during the American Civil War, the ironclads Monitor and Virginia (formerly Merrimack) battled in the harbor at Hampton Roads, Virginia, marking the beginning of a new era of naval warfare. Today is the birthday of writer John McPhee (b. 1931), a master of creative nonfiction. One of McPhee’s most widely read books is Coming into the Country, which eloquently describes the Alaskan wilderness. March 9th is the birthday of Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin – the first man to ever travel in space. He was born in 1934 and died in the crash of a MiG-15-UTI fighter …