On this day: December 9

Events on December 9

• 1531 The Virgin of Guadalupe first appears to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City. Wikipedia
• 1636 The Qing dynasty of China, led by Emperor Hong Taiji, invades Joseon. Wikipedia
• 1688 In one of two substantial military actions in England during the Glorious Revolution, forces loyal to William of Orange were decisively victorious at the Battle of Reading. Wikipedia
• 1775 American Revolutionary War: After their loss in the Battle of Great Bridge, British authorities were forced to evacuate from the Colony of Virginia. Wikipedia
• 1822 In a memoir read to the French Academy of Sciences, Augustin-Jean Fresnel coined the terms linear, circular, and elliptical polarization, and reported a direct refraction experiment verifying his theory that optical rotation is a form of birefringence. Wikipedia
• 1888 The first edition of the Argosy magazine was published under the title The Golden Argosy. Wikipedia
• 1892 The English association football club Newcastle United was founded by the merger of Newcastle East End and West End. Wikipedia
• 1897 French actress, journalist and leading suffragette Marguerite Durand founded the feminist newspaper La Fronde. Wikipedia
• 1911 A mine explosion near Briceville, Tennessee, killed 84 miners despite a well-organized rescue effort led by the United States Bureau of Mines. Wikipedia
• 1917 First World War: Hussein al-Husayni, the Ottoman mayor of Jerusalem, surrendered the city to British forces. Wikipedia
• 1922 Gabriel Narutowicz is elected the first president of Poland. Wikipedia
• 1940 Second World War: British and Commonwealth forces began Operation Compass, the first major Allied military operation of the Western Desert campaign. Wikipedia
• 1948 The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention, which defines genocide in legal terms and obligates its signatories to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. Wikipedia
• 1961 Tanganyika Territory gained independence from Britain before becoming part of Tanzania three years later. Wikipedia
• 1965 A large, brilliant fireball was seen by thousands in midwestern North America before landing in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. Wikipedia
• 1968 Douglas 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 computer system NLS. Wikipedia
• 1969 U.S. secretary of state William P. Rogers proposed a plan, later called the Rogers Plan, for a ceasefire in the War of Attrition; Egypt's and Jordan's acceptance of the plan over Palestine Liberation Organization objections led to civil war in Jordan in September 1970. Wikipedia
• 1971 Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Air Force executes an airdrop of Indian Army units, bypassing Pakistani defences. Wikipedia
• 1979 A World Health Organization commission of scientists certified the global eradication of smallpox, making it the only human infectious disease to date to have been completely eradicated. Wikipedia
• 1981 Mumia Abu-Jamal was arrested for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner; his subsequent conviction and death sentence generated controversy in the United States. Wikipedia
• 1990 In Serbia's first multi-party election, Slobodan Milošević won the presidential election and the Socialist Party of Serbia won the majority of seats in the National Assembly. Wikipedia
• 2008 Rod Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois, was arrested on corruption charges, including for attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by president-elect Barack Obama. Wikipedia
• 2016 Park Geun-hye, the president of South Korea, was impeached, marking the culmination of the country's political scandal. Wikipedia
• 2017 Same-sex marriage in Australia became legal as the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017 came into effect. Wikipedia
• 2021 Fifty-five people are killed and more than 100 injured when a truck with 160 migrants from Central America overturned in Chiapas, Mexico. Wikipedia
• 2022 Members of the European Parliament, including Vice President Eva Kaili, and their associates are arrested in connection with the Qatar corruption scandal. Wikipedia

Born on December 9

• 1594 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (died 1632) Wikipedia
• 1608 John Milton, English poet and philosopher (died 1674) Wikipedia
• 1717 Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German archaeologist and historian (died 1768) Wikipedia
• 1742 Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Swedish Pomeranian and German pharmaceutical chemist (died 1786) Wikipedia
• 1842 Peter Kropotkin, Russian zoologist, economist, geographer, and philosopher (died 1921) Wikipedia
• 1868 Fritz Haber, Polish-German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1934) Wikipedia
• 1895 Dolores Ibárruri, Spanish activist, journalist and politician (died 1989) Wikipedia
• 1906 Grace Hopper, American admiral and computer scientist, designed COBOL (died 1992) Wikipedia
• 1911 Broderick Crawford, American actor (died 1986) Wikipedia
• 1916 Kirk Douglas, American actor, singer, and producer (died 2020) Wikipedia
• 1917 James Rainwater, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1986) Wikipedia
• 1919 William Lipscomb, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2011) Wikipedia
• 1920 Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Italian economist and politician, 10th President of Italy (died 2016) Wikipedia
• 1926 Henry Way Kendall, American physicist, photographer, and mountaineer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1999) Wikipedia
• 1929 Bob Hawke, Australian union leader and politician, 23rd Prime Minister of Australia (died 2019) Wikipedia
• 1934 Judi Dench, English actress Wikipedia
• 1946 Sonia Gandhi, Italian-Indian politician Wikipedia
• 1953 John Malkovich, American actor and producer Wikipedia
• 1954 Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourger lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of Luxembourg Wikipedia
• 1962 Felicity Huffman, American actress and producer Wikipedia
• 1969 Bixente Lizarazu, French footballer Wikipedia
• 1987 Hikaru Nakamura, Japanese-American chess player Wikipedia

Died on December 9

• 1437 Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (born 1368) Wikipedia
• 1565 Pope Pius IV (born 1499) Wikipedia
• 1641 Anthony van Dyck, Belgian-English painter and illustrator (born 1599) Wikipedia
• 1669 Pope Clement IX (born 1600) Wikipedia
• 1706 Peter II of Portugal (born 1648) Wikipedia
• 1916 Natsume Sōseki, Japanese author and poet (born 1867) Wikipedia
• 1937 Gustaf Dalén, Swedish physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1869) Wikipedia
• 1941 Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Russian author, poet, and philosopher (born 1865) Wikipedia
• 1945 Yun Chi-ho, South Korean activist and politician (born 1864) Wikipedia
• 1970 Artem Mikoyan, Armenian-Russian engineer and businessman, co-founded the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau (born 1905) Wikipedia
• 1971 Ralph Bunche, American political scientist, academic, and diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1904) Wikipedia
• 1996 Mary Leakey, English archaeologist and anthropologist (born 1913) Wikipedia
• 1996 Alain Poher, French lawyer and politician (born 1909) Wikipedia
• 2013 Eleanor Parker, American actress (born 1922) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Anna's Day, marks the day to start the preparation process of the lutefisk to be consumed on Christmas Eve, as well as a Swedish name day, celebrating all people named Anna. (Sweden and Finland) Wikipedia
• Armed Forces Day (Peru) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Feast of the Conception of the Most Holy Theotokos by St. Anne (Eastern Orthodox Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Hannah (biblical figure) (Eastern Orthodox Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Juan Diego Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Leocadia Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Nectarius of Auvergne Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Peter Fourier Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: December 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Fatherland's Heroes Day (Russia) Wikipedia
• Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Tanganyika from Britain in 1961. (Tanzania) Wikipedia
• International Anti-Corruption Day (United Nations) Wikipedia
• National Heroes Day, formerly V.C. Bird Day. (Antigua and Barbuda) Wikipedia
• Navy Day (Sri Lanka) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “December 9” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/December 9” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “December 9” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for December 9 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.