1909 - What happened in 1909 ?

January 1909

Tuesday 05:

Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.

Saturday 16:

Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.

Wednesday 27:

The Young Left is founded in Norway.

Thursday 28:

United States troops leave Cuba after being there since the Spanish-American War.

February 1909

Friday 12:

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.

Tuesday 23:

The Silver Dart makes the first powered flight in Canada and the British Empire.

Wednesday 24:

The Hudson Motor Car Company is founded.

March 1909

Monday 15:

Selfridges department store opens in London.

Thursday 18:

Einar Dessau uses a short-wave radio transmitter becoming the first to broadcast as a ham radio operator.

Tuesday 23:

Theodore Roosevelt leaves New York for a post-presidency safari in Africa. The trip is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.

Wednesday 31:

Serbia accepts Austrian control over Bosnia-Herzegovina.

April 1909

Tuesday 06:

Robert Peary allegedly reaches the North Pole.

Friday 09:

The U.S. Congress passes the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act.

Monday 19:

Joan of Arc receives beatification.

Tuesday 27:

Sultan of Turkey Abdul Hamid II is overthrown, and is succeeded by his brother, Murat V.

May 1909

Thursday 13:

The first Giro d'Italia took place in Milan. Italian cyclist Luigi Ganna was the winner.

June 1909

Tuesday 01:

The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition world's fair opens in Seattle, Washington, United States.

Wednesday 02:

Alfred Deakin becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.

Wednesday 09:

1909 ? Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, became the first woman to drive across the United States. With three female companions, none of whom could drive a car, for fifty-nine days she drove a Maxwell automobile the 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York to San Francisco, California.

Tuesday 15:

Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lords and form the Imperial Cricket Conference.

July 1909

Tuesday 13:

Gold discovered near Cochrane, Ontario.

Sunday 25:

Louis Bleriot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine (Calais to Dover in 37 minutes).

August 1909

Wednesday 18:

Tokyo mayor Yukio Ozaki presents Washington, D.C. with 2,000 cherry trees, which President Taft decides to plant near the Potomac River.

Tuesday 24:

Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.

Monday 30:

Burgess Shale fossils discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott

November 1909

Saturday 13:

Ballinger-Pinchot scandal begins: Collier's magazine accuses US Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger of questionable dealings in Alaskan coal fields.

Thursday 18:

Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of dictator José Santos Zelaya.

December 1909

Thursday 23:

Albert I of Belgium becomes King