March 9 Illinois History Minute

It’s March 9th, the day that judge and senator David Davis was born in Maryland in 1815. Settling in Bloomington after law school, Davis became a friend of Abraham Lincoln. Davis helped Lincoln secure the Republican nomination for president in 1860, and Lincoln later appointed Davis to the U-S Supreme Court.

Illinois lawmakers approved a direct primary law on this date in 1910, ensuring that Illinois’s major party candidates would be chosen by voters in primary elections, not at conventions or caucuses. 

Chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer was born in Chicago on this day in 1943. Fischer won the 1972 world chess championship at age 29, beating the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky, and interrupting the Soviets’ string of 24 consecutive world chess titles.