May 9Birthdays & History

On this day: May 9 in history

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

1. 328Athanasius is elected Patriarch of Alexandria.Middle East
2. 1009Lombard Revolt: Lombard forces led by Melus revolt in Bari against the Byzantine Catepanate of Italy.Europe
3. 1310Nephon, Bishop of Cyzicus, is consecrated as Patriarch of Constantinople.Middle East
4. 1386England and Portugal formally ratify their alliance with the signing of the Treaty of Windsor, making it the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world which is still in force.Europe
5. 1450Timurid monarch 'Abd al-Latif is assassinated.Asia
6. 1502Christopher Columbus sets off from Cádiz for his fourth voyage.EuropeLatin America
7. 1540Hernando de Alarcón sets sail on an expedition to the Gulf of California.North America
8. 1645Scottish Royalist forces under Lord Montrose defeat Covenanter forces under John Urry.Europe
9. 1662The figure who later became Mr. Punch makes his first recorded appearance in England.Europe
10. 1671Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal England's Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.Europe
11. 1726Five men arrested during a raid on Mother Clap's molly house in London are executed at Tyburn.Europe
12. 1761Exhibition of 1761, the inaugural exhibition of the Society of Artists of Great Britain, opens at Spring Gardens in London.Europe
13. 1864Second Schleswig War: The Danish navy defeats the Austrian and Prussian fleets in the Battle of Heligoland.Europe
14. 1865American Civil War: President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation ending belligerent rights of the rebels and enjoining foreign nations to intern or expel Confederate ships.North America
15. 1865American Civil War: Nathan Bedford Forrest surrenders his forces at Gainesville, Alabama.North America
16. 1873Der Krach: The Vienna stock exchange crash begins the Panic of 1873 and heralds the Long Depression.Europe
17. 1877Mihail Kogălniceanu reads, in the Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of Independence of Romania. The date will become recognised as the Independence Day of Romania.Europe
18. 1901Australia opens its first national parliament in Melbourne.Oceania
19. 1915World War I: Second Battle of Artois between German and French forces.Europe
20. 1918World War I: Germany repels Britain's second attempt to blockade the port of Ostend, Belgium.Europe
21. 1920Polish–Soviet War: The Polish army under General Edward Rydz-Śmigły celebrates its capture of Kiev with a victory parade on Khreshchatyk.Europe
22. 1926Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claim to have flown over the North Pole (later discovery of Byrd's diary appears to cast some doubt on the claim).World
23. 1927The Old Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, officially opens.Oceania
24. 1936Italy formally annexes Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5.EuropeAfrica
25. 1941World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.Europe
26. 1942The Holocaust in Ukraine: The SS executes 588 Jewish residents of the Podolian town of Zinkiv (Khmelnytska oblast). The Zoludek Ghetto (in Belarus) is destroyed and all its inhabitants executed or deported.Europe
27. 1945World War II: The Channel Islands are liberated from Nazi occupation.Europe
28. 1946King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicates and is succeeded by Umberto II.Europe
29. 1948Czechoslovakia's Ninth-of-May Constitution comes into effect.Europe
30. 1950Robert Schuman presents the "Schuman Declaration", considered by some to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.Europe
31. 1955Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.Europe
32. 1960The Food and Drug Administration announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making Enovid the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill.North America
33. 1969Carlos Lamarca leads the first urban guerrilla action against the military dictatorship of Brazil in São Paulo, by robbing two banks.Latin America
34. 1974Watergate scandal: The United States House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.North America
35. 1979Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed by firing squad in Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the once 100,000-strong Jewish community of Iran.Middle East
36. 1980In Norco, California, United States, five masked gunmen hold up a Security Pacific bank, leading to a violent shoot-out and one of the largest pursuits in California history. Two of the gunmen and one police officer are killed and thirty-three police and civilian vehicles are destroyed in the chase.North America
37. 1980In Florida, United States, Liberian freighter MV Summit Venture collides with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, making a 430-meter (1,400 ft) section of the southbound span collapse. Thirty-five people in six cars and a Greyhound bus fall 46 metres (150 ft) into the water and die.North AmericaAfrica
38. 1987LOT Flight 5055 Tadeusz Kościuszko crashes after takeoff in Warsaw, Poland, killing all 183 people on board.Europe
39. 1988New Parliament House, Canberra officially opens.Oceania
40. 1992Armenian forces capture Shusha, marking a major turning point in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.Europe
41. 1992Westray Mine disaster kills 26 workers in Nova Scotia, Canada.North America
42. 1999Mother's Day bus crash kills 22 passengers and injures another 22, including the driver in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.North America
43. 2001In Ghana, 129 football fans die in what became known as the Accra Sports Stadium disaster. The deaths are caused by a stampede (caused by the firing of tear gas by police personnel at the stadium) that followed a controversial decision by the referee.Africa
44. 2002The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected terrorists among them deported to several different countries.Middle East
45. 2018Barisan Nasional, the coalition that had governed Malaysia since the country's independence in 1957, suffer a historic defeat in the 2018 Malaysian general election.Asia
46. 2020The COVID-19 recession causes the U.S. unemployment rate to hit 14.9 percent, its worst rate since the Great Depression.North America
47. 2022Russo-Ukrainian war: United States President Joe Biden signs the 2022 Lend-Lease Act into law, a rebooted World War II-era policy attempting to expedite American equipment to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries.EuropeNorth America
48. 2023The May 9 riots following the arrest of Imran Khan in Pakistan.Asia

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