1909

Events

January–February

William Taft 27th President of the United States

• January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.
• January 9 – The British Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, led by Ernest Shackleton, arrives at the farthest south reached by any prior expedition, at 88°23' S, prior to turning back, due to diminishing supplies.^[1]
• January 16 – Shackleton's expedition claims to have found the magnetic South Pole^[2] (but the location recorded may be incorrect).
• January 24 – The White Star Liner RMS Republic sinks, the day after a collision with SS Florida. In the first recorded use of the CQD emergency radio signal for a large passenger vessel, one person, a male passenger, is lost on the Republic.^[3]
• January 28 – The last United States troops leave Cuba, after being there since the Spanish–American War of 1898.
• February 2 – The Paris Film Congress opens. It is an attempt to create a cartel of leading European producers similar to the MPPC in the United States.
• February 5 – Leo Baekeland announces the creation of bakelite hard thermosetting plastic.
• February 12 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded in New York, New York.

March–April

• March 4 – William Howard Taft is sworn in, as the 27th President of the United States.
• March 10 – The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 is signed in Bangkok.
• March 18 – Einar Dessau uses a shortwave radio transmitter, becoming the first radio broadcaster.
• March 21 – The remains of the Báb are placed in the Bahá'í Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel in Haifa, at this time within the Ottoman Empire.
• March 31 – Serbia accepts Austrian control over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• April 4 – The association football team Sport Club Internacional is founded in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
• April 6 – Robert Peary, Matthew Henson, and four Inuit explorers, Ootah, Ooqueah, Seegloo, and Egigingwah, come within a few miles of the North Pole.^[4]
• April 11 – The city of Tel Aviv (known in its first year as Ahuzat Bayit) is founded by the Jewish community, on the outskirts of Jaffa.
• April 13 (March 31 by Eastern reckoning) – A countercoup begins in the Ottoman Empire.
• April 14 – Adana massacre: Ottoman Turks kill 15,000–30,000 Armenian Christians, in the Adana Vilayet.
• April 18 – Joan of Arc is beatified in Rome.
• April 19 – The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (modern-day BP) is incorporated.
• April 27 – Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Abdul Hamid II is overthrown and succeeded by his brother, Mehmed V. He is sent to the Ottoman port city of Thessaloniki (Selanik) the next day.

May–June

• May 13–30 – The first Giro d'Italia bicycle race starts and finishes in Milan; Luigi Ganna is the winner.
• May 19 – Russian ballet is brought to the Western world, when the Ballets Russes opens a tour produced by Sergei Diaghilev at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with 55 dancers, including Vaslav Nijinsky.^[5]
• June 2 – French forces capture Abéché, capital of the Wadai Empire in central Africa.
• June 15 – Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lord's Cricket Ground, and form the Imperial Cricket Conference.

July–August

July 25: Louis Blériot crosses the English Channel

• July 16 – A revolution forces Mohammad Ali Shah of the Qajar Dynasty to abdicate in favor of his son Ahmad Shah Qajar. He proceeds to leave Persia for Imperial Russia, reportedly seeking the assistance of Nicholas II of Russia in regaining the throne.
• July 25 – Louis Blériot is the first man to fly across the English Channel (thus a large open body of water) in a heavier-than-air craft.
• July 25–August 2 – "Tragic Week": The city of Barcelona experiences a workers' uprising.
• August 2 – The United States Army Signal Corp Division purchases the world's first military airplane, a Wright Military Flyer, from the Wright brothers.
• August 8 – Max Heindel formally founds the Rosicrucian Fellowship in Seattle, Washington.
• August 12 – The Indianapolis Motor Speedway opens in the United States.

September–October

• September 4 – Japan and China sign the Jiandao/Gando Treaty, which gives Japan a way to receive railroad concessions in Manchuria.
• October 8 – An earthquake in the Zagreb area leads Andrija Mohorovičić to identify the Mohorovičić discontinuity.
• October 12 – The association football team Coritiba is founded in Curitiba, Brazil.
• October 13 – An agreement by Germany, Italy and Switzerland gives the Germans and Italians access to the Gotthard Rail Tunnel.
• October 26 – Itō Hirobumi, four time Prime Minister of Japan (the 1st, 5th, 7th and 10th) and Resident-General of Korea, is assassinated by An Jung-geun at the Harbin Railway Station in Manchuria.

November–December

• November 18 – In Nicaragua, 500 revolutionaries (including 2 Americans) are executed by order of dictator José Santos Zelaya. The United States responds by sending 2 warships.
• December 4 – Montreal Canadiens, a well known professional ice hockey club in Canada, is founded.^[6]
• December 14 – New South Wales Premier Charles Wade signs the Seat of Government Surrender Act 1909, formally completing the transfer of State land to the Commonwealth, to create the Australian Capital Territory.
• December 19 – The association football team Borussia Dortmund is founded in Dortmund, Germany.
• December 23 – King Albert I of Belgium succeeds his uncle, Leopold II (died December 17), on the throne.
• December 28 – The first manned heavier-than-air powered flight in South Africa is made at East London, by French aviator Albert Kimmerling, in a Voisin 1907 biplane.^[7]

Undated

• Karl Landsteiner, Constantin Levaditi and Erwin Popper discover the polio virus.