On this day: May 9

Events on May 9

• 1386 England 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. Wikipedia
• 1502 Christopher Columbus sets off from Cádiz for his fourth voyage. Wikipedia
• 1877 Mihail Kogălniceanu reads, in the Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of Independence of Romania. The date will become recognised as the Independence Day of Romania. Wikipedia
• 1877 An earthquake struck northern Chile, leading to the deaths of 2,385 people, mostly victims of the ensuing tsunami, as far away as Hawaii and Fiji. Wikipedia
• 1901 Australia opens its first national parliament in Melbourne. Wikipedia
• 1915 World War I: British forces launched the Battle of Aubers, an offensive on the Western Front, as part of the larger Second Battle of Artois. Wikipedia
• 1915 World War I: Second Battle of Artois between German and French forces. Wikipedia
• 1918 First World War: Germany repelled Britain's second attempt to blockade the Belgian port of Ostend. Wikipedia
• 1926 Admiral 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). Wikipedia
• 1936 Italy formally annexes Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5. Wikipedia
• 1941 World 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. Wikipedia
• 1942 The 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. Wikipedia
• 1944 World War II: The Japanese Take Ichi convoy arrived at Halmahera in the Dutch East Indies after losing many ships and thousands of troops to Allied attacks while attempting to carry two divisions of troops from China to New Guinea. Wikipedia
• 1945 World War II: The Channel Islands are liberated from Nazi occupation. Wikipedia
• 1955 Cold War: West Germany joins NATO. Wikipedia
• 1969 Carlos Lamarca leads the first urban guerrilla action against the military dictatorship of Brazil in São Paulo, by robbing two banks. Wikipedia
• 1974 Watergate scandal: The United States House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon. Wikipedia
• 1977 The Hotel Polen in Amsterdam was destroyed by fire, leaving 33 people dead. Wikipedia
• 1980 In 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. Wikipedia
• 1987 LOT Flight 5055 Tadeusz Kościuszko crashes after takeoff in Warsaw, Poland, killing all 183 people on board. Wikipedia
• 1992 Armenian forces capture Shusha, marking a major turning point in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Wikipedia
• 1999 Mother's Day bus crash kills 22 passengers and injures another 22, including the driver in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Wikipedia
• 2001 In 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. Wikipedia
• 2005 Pope Benedict XVI began the beatification process for his predecessor Pope John Paul II, waiving the standard five years required after the nominee's death. Wikipedia
• 2022 Russo-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. Wikipedia
• 2023 The May 9 riots following the arrest of Imran Khan in Pakistan. Wikipedia

Born on May 9

• 1147 Minamoto no Yoritomo, Japanese shōgun (died 1199) Wikipedia
• 1746 Gaspard Monge, French mathematician and engineer (died 1818) Wikipedia
• 1800 John Brown, American abolitionist (died 1859) Wikipedia
• 1837 Adam Opel, German engineer, founded the Opel Company (died 1895) Wikipedia
• 1860 J. M. Barrie, Scottish novelist and playwright (died 1937) Wikipedia
• 1874 Howard Carter, English archaeologist and historian (died 1939) Wikipedia
• 1883 José Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher, author, and critic (died 1955) Wikipedia
• 1892 Zita of Bourbon-Parma, last Empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (died 1989) Wikipedia
• 1907 Baldur von Schirach, German politician (died 1974) Wikipedia
• 1921 Sophie Scholl, German activist (died 1943) Wikipedia
• 1924 Bulat Okudzhava, Russian singer, poet, and author (died 1997) Wikipedia
• 1927 Manfred Eigen, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2019) Wikipedia
• 1936 Glenda Jackson, English actress and politician (died 2023) Wikipedia
• 1936 Albert Finney, English actor (died 2019) Wikipedia
• 1940 James L. Brooks, American director, producer, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1942 John Ashcroft, American lawyer and politician, 79th United States Attorney General Wikipedia
• 1945 Jupp Heynckes, German footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1946 Candice Bergen, American actress and producer Wikipedia
• 1949 Billy Joel, American singer-songwriter and pianist Wikipedia
• 1955 Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia (died 2012) Wikipedia
• 1979 Rosario Dawson, American actress Wikipedia
• 1991 Majlinda Kelmendi, Kosovar judoka Wikipedia

Died on May 9

• 480 Julius Nepos, Western Roman Emperor Wikipedia
• 729 Osric, king of Northumbria Wikipedia
• 1707 Dieterich Buxtehude, German-Danish organist and composer (born 1637) Wikipedia
• 1805 Friedrich Schiller, German poet, playwright, and historian (born 1759) Wikipedia
• 1850 Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, French chemist and physicist (born 1778) Wikipedia
• 1931 Albert Abraham Michelson, German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1852) Wikipedia
• 1976 Ulrike Meinhof, German militant, co-founded the Red Army Faction (born 1934) Wikipedia
• 1978 Aldo Moro, Italian lawyer and politician, 38th Prime Minister of Italy (born 1916) Wikipedia
• 1986 Tenzing Norgay, Nepalese mountaineer (born 1914) Wikipedia
• 2004 Akhmad Kadyrov, Chechen cleric and politician, 1st President of the Chechen Republic (born 1951) Wikipedia
• 2010 Lena Horne, American singer, actress, and activist (born 1917) Wikipedia
• 2015 Kenan Evren, Turkish general and politician, 7th President of Turkey (born 1917) Wikipedia
• 2020 Little Richard, American singer, songwriter, and pianist (born 1932) Wikipedia
• 2024 Roger Corman, American film director, producer, and actor (born 1926) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Beatus of Vendome Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Christopher (Eastern Orthodox Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: George Preca Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Gerontius of Cervia Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Gregory of Nazianzen (The Episcopal Church (US) and traditional Roman Catholic calendar) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Karolina Gerhardinger Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Nicolaus Zinzendorf (Lutheran) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Pachomius the Great Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Thomas Pickering Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Tudy of Landevennec Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: May 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Commemoration of the end of the German occupation of the Channel Islands related observances: Liberation Day, commemorating the end of the German occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II. (Guernsey and Jersey) Wikipedia
• Commemoration of the end of the German occupation of the Channel Islands related observances: National Day (Alderney) Wikipedia
• Europe Day, commemorating the Schuman Declaration. (European Union, Kosovo, Moldova, Ukraine) Wikipedia
• Victory Day observances, celebration of the Soviet Union victory over Nazi Germany (Soviet Union, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) Victory and Peace Day, marks the capture of Shusha (1992) in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, and the end of World War II. (Armenia) Wikipedia
• Home Front Heroes Day in the United States (proposed; locally observed in Dallas, Texas) Wikipedia
• Goku Day (Japan), commemorating the fictional character Goku. Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “May 9” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.