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Today December 9th 2009 this day in history Read more below to view events, deaths, births, Holidays observances and video clips. Last database updated: Jan 17th, 2009
Events
536 – Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city, returning the old capital to its empire.
1425 – The Catholic University of Leuven is founded.
1531 – The Virgin of Guadalupe said to have first appeared to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico.
1793 – New York City s first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.
1824 – Patriot 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.
1835 – The Republic of Texas captures San Antonio, Texas.
1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec.
1856 – The Iranian city of Bushehr surrenders to occupying British forces.
1861 – American Civil War: The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War is established by the U.S. Congress.
1872 – In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first serving African-American governor of a U.S. state.
1875 – Massachusetts Rifle Association America s Oldest Active Gun Club is founded.
1888 – Statistician Herman Hollerith installs his computing device at the United States War Department.
1897 – Activist Marguerite Durand founds the feminist daily newspaper, La Fronde, in Paris.
1905 – In France, the law separating church and state is passed.
1917 – In Palestine, Field Marshal Edmund Allenby captures Jerusalem.
1922 – Gabriel Narutowicz is announced the first president of Poland.
1931 – The Constituent Cortes approves the constitution which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.
1935 – Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in gangland murder.
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanjing – Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launch an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing.
1940 – World 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.
1941 – World War II: The Republic of China, Cuba, Guatemala, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, and the Philippine Commonwealth, declare war on Germany and Japan.
1941 – World War II: The 19th Bombardment Group attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon.
1946 – The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials began with the Doctors Trial, prosecuting doctors alleged to be involved in human experimentation.
1950 – Harry Gold is sentenced to thirty 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.
1953 – Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.
1958 – Red Scare: The John Birch Society was founded in the United States.
1960 – The first episode of Britain s longest running television soap opera Coronation Street is broadcast.
1961 – The trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Israel ends with verdicts of guilty on 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people and membership of an outlawed organization.
1961 – Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain.
1962 – The Petrified Forest National Park is established in Arizona.
1965 – The Kecksburg UFO incident: a fireball is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; witnesses report something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh. In 2005 NASA admits that it examined an object.
1968 – NLS (a system for which hypertext and the computer mouse were developed) is publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco.
1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.
1987 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
1988 – The Michael Hughes Bridge in Sligo, Ireland is officially opened.
1990 – Lech Walesa becomes the first directly elected president of Poland.
2000 – The United States Supreme Court stays the Florida recount.
2003 – A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds several more.
2006 – Moscow suffers its worst fire since 1977, killing 45 women in a drug rehabitation center.
2008- The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is arrested by federal officials for a number of alleged crimes including attempting to sell the United States Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama s election to the Presidency..
Births
1447 – Chenghua, Emperor of China (d. 1487)
1508 – Gemma Frisius, Dutch mathematician and cartographer (d. 1555)
1561 – Sir Edwin Sandys, English-born Virginian colonist (d. 1629)
1571 – Metius (Adriaan Adriaanszoon), Dutch mathematician and astronomer (d. 1635)
1579 – Martin de Porres, Peruvian saint (d. 1639)
1594 – Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (d. 1632)
1608 – John Milton, English poet (d. 1674)
1610 – Baldassare Ferri, Italian castrato (d. 1680)
1652 – Augustus Quirinus Rivinus, German physician (d. 1723)
1667 – William Whiston, English mathematician (d. 1752)
1717 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German art historian (d. 1768)
1748 – Claude Louis Berthollet, French chemist (d. 1822)
1751 – Maria Luisa of Parma, queen of Charles IV of Spain (d. 1819)
1787 – John Dobson, English architect (d. 1865)
1806 – Jean-Olivier Chénier, French Canadian physician and Patriote (d. 1838)
1837 – Émile Waldteufel, French composer (d. 1915)
1842 – Peter Kropotkin, Russian anarchist (d. 1921)
1847 – George Grossmith, English actor and writer (d. 1912)
1850 – Emma Abbott, American soprano (d. 1891)
1868 – Fritz Haber, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934)
1871 – Joe Kelley, American baseball player (d. 1943)
1876 – Berton Churchill, American actor (d. 1940)
1882 – Joaquín Turina, Spanish composer (d. 1949)
1883 – Nikolai Luzin, Russian mathematician (d. 1950)
1886 – Clarence Birdseye, American frozen food manufacturer (d. 1956)
1887 – Tim Moore, American actor and vaudevillian (d. 1958)
1889 – Hannes Kolehmainen, Finnish long-distance runner (d. 1966)
1891 – Maksim Bahdanovic, Belarusian poet (d. 1917)
1895 – Conchita Supervía, Spanish opera singer (d. 1936)
1897 – Hermione Gingold, English actress (d. 1987)
1898 – Emmett Kelly, American circus clown (d. 1979)
1899 – Jean de Brunhoff, French author (d. 1937)
1900 – Albert Weisbord, American labor organizer (d. 1977)
1901 – Carol Dempster, American actress (d. 1991)
1901 – Ödön von Horváth, Hungarian-born writer (d. 1938)
1901 – Jean Mermoz, French pilot (d. 1936)
1902 – Margaret Hamilton, American actress (d. 1985)
1904 – Robert Livingston, American actor (d. 1988)
1905 – Dalton Trumbo, American writer (d. 1976)
1906 – Grace Hopper, American computer pioneer (d. 1992)
1909 – Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., American actor (d. 2000)
1911 – Broderick Crawford, American actor (d. 1986)
1911 – Ryuzo Sejima, Japanese educator (d. 2007)
1912 – Tip O Neill, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 1994)
1914 – Frances Reid, American actress
1915 – Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, German-born soprano (d. 2006)
1916 – Kirk Douglas, American actor
1917 – James Angleton, head of counterintelligence for the CIA (d. 1987)
1917 – James Rainwater, American physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 1986)
1918 – Jerome Beatty Jr., American author
1919 – William Lipscomb, American chemist, Nobel laureate
1920 – Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, President of the Italian Republic
1922 – Redd Foxx, American comedian (d. 1991)
1925 – Dina Merrill, American actress
1926 – Henry Way Kendall, American physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 1999)
1926 – Jan Kresadlo, Czech writer (d. 1995)
1927 – Pierre Henry, French composer
1928 – André Milhoux, Belgian racing driver
1928 – Dick Van Patten, American actor
1929 – John Cassavetes, American actor and director (d. 1989)
1929 – Bob Hawke, 23rd Prime Minister of Australia
1930 – Buck Henry, American actor
1931 – William Reynolds, American actor
1931 – Ladislav Smoljak, Czech actor
1932 – Edd Wheeler, American singer-songwriter
1933 – Ashleigh Brilliant, American writer (Pot-Shots)
1933 – Morton Downey Jr., American talk show host (d. 2001)
1933 – Monique Miller, French Canadian actress
1933 – Orville Moody, American golfer (d. 2008)
1934 – Dame Judi Dench, English actress
1934 – Junior Wells, American musician (d. 1998)
1937 – Darwin Joston, American actor (d. 1998)
1938 – David Houston, American country singer (d. 1993)
1938 – Deacon Jones, American football player
1941 – Beau Bridges, American actor
1941 – Dan Hicks, American musician
1942 – Billy Bremner, Scottish footballer (d. 1997)
1942 – Dick Butkus, American football player
1943 – Pit Martin, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2008)
1944 – Neil Innes, English singer/songwriter (Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Rutles)
1944 – Ki Longfellow, American novelist
1944 – Bob O Connor, American politician (d. 2006)
1945 – Matti Mäntylä, Finnish actor
1945 – Michael Nouri, American actor
1946 – Sonia Gandhi, Italian-born Indian politician
1946 – Shatrughan Sinha, Indian actor
1947 – Tom Daschle, American politician
1947 – Jaak Jõerüüt, Soviet-born Estonian politician
1948 – Dennis Dunaway, American musician
1948 – Marleen Gorris, Dutch film director
1949 – Tom Kite, American golfer
1949 – Nando Parrado, Uruguayan plane crash survivor
1950 – Joan Armatrading, St. Kitts-born English singer
1952 – Liaqat Baloch, Pakistani politician
1952 – Michael Dorn, American actor
1953 – World B. Free, American basketball player
1953 – John Malkovich, American actor
1954 – Herman Finkers, Dutch comedian
1955 – Chamras Saewataporn, Thai composer and musician
1957 – Donny Osmond, American singer and actor
1958 – Rikk Agnew, American guitarist (The Adolescents)
1958 – Nick Seymour, Australian bassist (Crowded House)
1960 – Terry Moran, American TV reporter
1960 – Juan Samuel, Dominican baseball player
1960 – Dobroslav Paraga,Croatian politician and editor
1961 – David Anthony Higgins, American actor
1961 – Joe Lando, American actor
1962 – Felicity Huffman, American actress
1963 – Dave Hilton, Jr., Canadian boxer
1963 – Masako, Crown Princess of Japan
1964 – Paul Landers, German guitarist (Rammstein)
1965 – Joe Ausanio, American baseball player
1965 – Vecepia Towery, American Survivor contestant, Winner of Survivor: Marquesas
1966 – Kirsten Gillibrand, American politician
1966 – Toby Huss, American actor
1967 – Joshua Bell, American violinist
1967 – Jason Dozzell, English footballer
1967 – Gheorghe Popescu, Romanian footballer
1968 – Kurt Angle, American wrestler
1968 – Brian Bell, American guitarist (Weezer)
1968 – Dave Harold, English snooker player
1969 – Jakob Dylan, American singer (The Wallflowers)
1969 – Allison Smith, American actress
1969 – Bixente Lizarazu, French footballer
1969 – Sebastian Spence, Canadian actor
1970 – Kara DioGuardi, American songwriter, record producer, and singer
1971 – Petr Nedved, Czech ice hockey player
1972 – Reiko Aylesworth, American actress
1972 – Tre Cool, German-born American drummer (Green Day)
1972 – Fabrice Santoro, Tahitian-born French tennis player
1974 – Canibus, American rapper
1974 – Wendy Dillinger, American female soccer player and coach
1976 – Chris Booker, American baseball player
1977 – Saskia Garel, Canadian actress
1977 – Shayne Graham, American football player
1977 – Imogen Heap, English singer-songwriter
1978 – Jesse Metcalfe, American actor
1979 – Olivia Lufkin, Japanese singer
1979 – Stephen McPhail, Irish footballer
1980 – Ryder Hesjedal, Canadian cyclist
1981 – Mardy Fish, American tennis player
1981 – Diya Mirza, Indian actress
1982 – Tamilla Abassova, Russian cyclist
1982 – Nathalie De Vos, Belgian athlete
1983 – Dariusz Dudka, Polish footballer
1983 – Jermaine Beckford, English footballer
1990 – LaFee, German singer
Deaths
1165 – King Malcolm IV of Scotland (b. 1141)
1437 – Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1368)
1544 – Teofilo Folengo, Italian poet (b. 1491)
1565 – Pope Pius IV (b. 1499)
1603 – William Watson, English conspirator (b. 1559)
1625 – Ubbo Emmius, Dutch historian and geographer (b. 1547)
1636 – Fabian Birkowski, Polish writer (b. 1566)
1640 – Pierre Fourier, Roman Catholic saint and French priest (b. 1565)
1641 – Anthony van Dyck, Flemish painter (b. 1599)
1669 – Pope Clement IX (b. 1600)
1674 – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, English statesman and historian (b. 1609)
1706 – King Peter II of Portugal (b. 1648)
1718 – Vincenzo Coronelli, Italian cartographer and encylopaedist (b. 1650)
1793 – Gabrielle de Polastron, comtesse de Polignac, French aristocrat (b. 1749)
1798 – Johann Reinhold Forster, German botanist (b. 1729)
1830 – Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher, Danish surgeon (b. 1757)
1854 – Almeida Garrett, Portuguese writer (b. 1799)
1858 – Robert Baldwin, Canadian politician (b. 1804)
1887 – Mahmadu Lamine, Senegalese marabout and military leader
1894 – Pafnuty Chebyshev, Russian mathematician (b. 1821)
1916 – Natsume Soseki, Japanese novelist (b. 1867)
1924 – Bernard Zweers, Dutch composer and music teacher (b. 1854)
1930 – Rube Foster, American baseball player (b. 1879)
1935 – Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor (b. 1886)
1937 – Nils Gustaf Dalén, Swedish physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1869)
1941 – Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Russian writer and philosopher (b. 1865)
1955 – Hermann Weyl, German mathematician (b. 1885)
1964 – Dame Edith Sitwell, English poet and critic (b. 1887)
1965 – Branch Rickey, American baseball executive (b. 1884)
1967 – Charles Léon Hammes, Luxembourgian lawyer (b. 1898)
1970 – Artem Mikoyan, Soviet aircraft designer (b. 1905)
1970 – Sir Feroz Khan Noon, Pakistani politican (b. 1893)
1971 – Ralph Bunche, American diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1904)
1971 – Sergey Konenkov, Russian sculptor (b. 1874)
1972 – Louella Parsons, American gossip columnist (b. 1881)
1975 – William A. Wellman, American movie director (b. 1896)
1979 – Fulton J. Sheen, American archbishop and television preacher (b. 1895)
1981 – Daniel Faulkner, Philadelphia police officer (b. 1955)
1982 – Leon Jaworski, Watergate scandal special prosecutor (b. 1905)
1984 – Razzle, English drummer (Hanoi Rocks) (b. 1960)
1992 – Vincent Gardenia, American actor (b. 1922)
1993 – Danny Blanchflower, Northern Irish footballer and manager (b. 1926)
1994 – Garnett Silk, Jamaican reggae singer (b. 1966)
1995 – Toni Cade Bambara, American author (b. 1939)
1995 – Douglas Corrigan, American aviator (b. 1907)
1996 – Patty Donahue, American singer (The Waitresses) (b. 1956)
1996 – Mary Leakey, English archaeologist and anthropologist (b. 1913)
1996 – Alain Poher, French politician (b. 1909)
1998 – Shaughnessy Cohen, Canadian politician (b. 1948)
1998 – Archie Moore, American boxer (b. 1913)
2001 – Michael Carver, British soldier (b. 1915)
2002 – Mary Hansen, Australian guitarist and singer (Stereolab) (b. 1966)
2002 – Ian Hornak, American painter and sculptor (b. 1944)
2002 – Stan Rice, American painter and poet (b. 1942)
2003 – Paul Simon, American politican (b. 1928)
2003 – Norm Sloan, American basketball coach (b. 1926)
2004 – David Brudnoy, American radio personality (b. 1940)
2004 – Lea De Mae, Czech actress (b. 1976)
2005 – György Sándor, Hungarian pianist (b. 1912)
2005 – Robert Sheckley, American author (b. 1928)
2007 – Thore Skogman, Swedish entertainer (b. 1931)
2007 – Gordon Zahn, American sociologist and pacifist (b. 1918)
2008 – Ibrahim Dossey, Ghanaian football player (b. 1972)
2008 – Yuri Glazkov, Soviet cosmonaut (b. 1939)
Holidays and observances
Calendar of saints:
Saint Leocadia; Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin : optional memorial
Peter Fourier, founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame
Autumn Day of Saint George (Russian Orthodox Church)
Peru: Army Day
Sweden and Finland: Anna s Day. Recognizes everyone named Anna, and marks the day to start the preparation process of the lutefisk to be consumed on Christmas Eve.
Tanzania – Independence Day (of Tanganika from Britain, 1961)
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