December 9Birthdays & History

On this day: December 9 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 536Gothic War: The Byzantine general Belisarius enters Rome unopposed; the Gothic garrison flees the capital.Europe
2. 730Battle of Marj Ardabil: The Khazars annihilate an Umayyad army and kill its commander, al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami.Middle East
3. 1432The first battle between the forces of Švitrigaila and Sigismund Kęstutaitis is fought near the town of Oszmiana (Ashmyany), launching the most active phase of the Lithuanian Civil War.Europe
4. 1531The Virgin of Guadalupe first appears to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City.Latin America
5. 1636The Qing dynasty of China, led by Emperor Hong Taiji, invades Joseon.Asia
6. 1775American Revolutionary War: British troops and Loyalists, misinformed about Patriot militia strength, lose the Battle of Great Bridge, ending British rule in Virginia.North AmericaEurope
7. 1822French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, in a memoir read to the Academy of Sciences, coins the terms linear polarization, circular polarization, and elliptical polarization, and reports a direct refraction experiment verifying his theory that optical rotation is a form of birefringence.Europe
8. 1824Patriot forces led by General Antonio José de Sucre defeat a Royalist army in the Battle of Ayacucho, putting an end to the Peruvian War of Independence.Latin America
9. 1835Texas Revolution: The Texian Army captures San Antonio following the Siege of Béxar.North America
10. 1851The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal.North America
11. 1856The Iranian city of Bushehr surrenders to occupying British forces.Middle EastEurope
12. 1861American Civil War: The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War is established by Congress.North America
13. 1868The first traffic lights are installed, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.Europe
14. 1872In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first African American governor of a U.S. state following the impeachment of Henry C. Warmoth.North AmericaAfrica
15. 1893National Assembly bombing by Auguste Vaillant during the Ère des attentats (1892–1894).Europe
16. 1905In France, a law separating church and state is passed.Europe
17. 1911A mine explosion near Briceville, Tennessee, kills 84 miners despite rescue efforts led by the United States Bureau of Mines.North America
18. 1917World War I: The Kingdom of Romania signs the Armistice of Focșani with the Central Powers.Europe
19. 1917World War I: Field Marshal Allenby captures Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire.Middle East
20. 1922Gabriel Narutowicz is elected the first president of Poland.Europe
21. 1931The Constituent Cortes approves a constitution which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.Europe
22. 1935Walter Liggett, an American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in a gangland murder.North America
23. 1935Student protests occur in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, and are subsequently dispersed by government authorities.Asia
24. 1937Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking: Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Yasuhiko Asaka launch an assault on the Chinese city of Nanking.AsiaAsia
25. 1940World War II: Operation Compass: British and Indian troops under the command of Major-General Richard O'Connor attack Italian forces near Sidi Barrani in Egypt.EuropeAsiaMiddle East
26. 1941World War II: China, Cuba, Guatemala, and the Philippine Commonwealth declare war on Germany and Japan.AsiaLatin AmericaEurope
27. 1946The Constituent Assembly of India meets for the first time to write the Constitution of India.Asia
28. 1946The subsequent Nuremberg trials begin with the Doctors' Trial, prosecuting physicians and officers alleged to be involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia.Europe
29. 1948The Genocide Convention is adopted.World
30. 1950Cold War: Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.North AmericaEurope
31. 1953Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.North America
32. 1956Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810-9, a Canadair North Star, crashes near Hope, British Columbia, Canada, killing all 62 people on board.North AmericaEurope
33. 1956An Aeroflot Lisunov Li-2 crashes near Anadyr, killing all 12 people on board.Europe
34. 1960The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, is broadcast in the United Kingdom.Europe
35. 1961Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain.AfricaEurope
36. 1965Kecksburg UFO incident: A fireball is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; with witnesses reporting something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh.North America
37. 1968Douglas Engelbart gave what became known as "The Mother of All Demos", publicly debuting the computer mouse, hypertext, and the bit-mapped graphical user interface using the oN-Line System (NLS).North America
38. 1969U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers proposes his plan for a ceasefire in the War of Attrition; Egypt and Jordan accept it over the objections of the PLO, which leads to civil war in Jordan in September 1970.North AmericaMiddle East
39. 1971Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Air Force executes an airdrop of Indian Army units, bypassing Pakistani defences.Asia
40. 1973British and Irish authorities sign the Sunningdale Agreement in an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland.Europe
41. 1979The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first of only two diseases that have been driven to extinction (with rinderpest in 2011 being the other).World
42. 1987Israeli–Palestinian conflict: The First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.Middle East
43. 1992American troops land in Somalia for Operation Restore Hope.North AmericaAfrica
44. 1996Gwen Jacob is acquitted of committing an indecent act, giving women the right to be topless in Ontario, Canada.North America
45. 2003A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds several more.Europe
46. 2006Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-116 carrying the P5 truss segment of the International Space Station.World
47. 2008Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is arrested by federal officials for crimes including attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.North America
48. 2012A plane crash in Mexico kills seven people including singer Jenni Rivera.Latin America
49. 2013At least seven are dead and 63 are injured following a train accident near Bintaro, Indonesia.Asia
50. 2016At least 57 people are killed and a further 177 injured when two schoolgirl suicide bombers attack a market area in Madagali, Adamawa, Nigeria in the Madagali suicide bombings.Africa
51. 2016President Park Geun-hye of South Korea is impeached by the country's National Assembly in response to a major political scandal.Asia
52. 2017The Marriage Amendment Bill receives royal assent and comes into effect, making Australia the 26th country to legalize same-sex marriage.Oceania
53. 2019A volcano on Whakaari / White Island, New Zealand, kills 22 people after it erupts.Oceania
54. 2021Fifty-five people are killed and more than 100 injured when a truck with 160 migrants from Central America overturned in Chiapas, Mexico.Latin AmericaNorth America

Source: Wikipedia "December 9" / CC BY-SA 4.0