What Happened on May 9th in History
30 historical events on this date
World War I: Second Battle of Artois between German and French forces.
World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the...
World War I: Germany repels Britain's second attempt to blockade the port of Ostend, Belgium.
The Second Ostend Raid was the later of two failed attempts made during the spring of 1918 by the United Kingdom's Royal Navy to block the channels leading to the Belgian port of Ostend as a part of...
PolishâSoviet War: The Polish army under General Edward Rydz-ĹmigĹy celebrates its capture of Kiev with a victory parade on Khreshchatyk.
The PolishâSoviet War was fought primarily between the Second Polish Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, following World War I and the Russian Revolution.
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).
Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. was an American naval officer, and pioneering aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights in which he served as a navigator and expedition...
The Old Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, officially opens.
Old Parliament House, formerly known as the Provisional Parliament House, was the seat of the Parliament of Australia from 1927 to 1988. The building began operation on 9 May 1927 after Parliament's...
Italy formally annexes Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5.
The Ethiopian Empire, historically known as Abyssinia or simply Ethiopia, was a country that encompassed the present-day territories of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It existed from the establishment of the...
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.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
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.
The Holocaust saw the systematic mass murder of Jews in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, the General Government, the Crimean General Government and some areas which were located to the east of...
World War II: The Channel Islands are liberated from Nazi occupation.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicates and is succeeded by Umberto II.
Victor Emmanuel III was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. A member of the House of Savoy, he also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 and King of the...
Czechoslovakia's Ninth-of-May Constitution comes into effect.
Czechoslovakia was a country in Central Europe. The country was bordered by Austria and Hungary to the south, Germany to the west and northwest, Poland to the northeast, and Ukraine to the...
Robert Schuman presents the "Schuman Declaration", considered by some to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.
Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Robert Schuman was a Luxembourg-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian democratic political thinker and activist. Twice Prime Minister of France, a reformist Minister...
Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.
The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist...
The Food and Drug Administration announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making Enovid the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health...
Carlos Lamarca leads the first urban guerrilla action against the military dictatorship of Brazil in SĂŁo Paulo, by robbing two banks.
Carlos Lamarca was a Brazilian Army Captain who deserted to join the armed struggle against the Brazilian military dictatorship. He was part of the Popular Revolutionary Vanguard and became, along...
Watergate scandal: The United States House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.
The Watergate scandal, or simply Watergate, was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. On June 17, 1972, operatives associated with Nixon's...
Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed by firing squad in Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the once 100,000-strong Jewish community of Iran.
Iranian Jews constitute one of the oldest communities of the Jewish diaspora. Dating back to the biblical era, they originate from the Jews who arrived in Iran as Babylonian captives. Books of the...
In Florida, United States, Liberian freighter MVÂ Summit Venture collides with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, making a 430-meter (1,400Â ft) section of the southbound span collapse. Thirty-five people in six cars and a Greyhound bus fall 46 metres (150Â ft) into the water and die.
Florida is a state in the Southeastern and South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean...
In Norco, California, United States, five masked gunmen hold up a Security Pacific bank, leading to a violent shoot-out and one of the largest pursuits in California history. Two of the gunmen and one police officer are killed and thirty-three police and civilian vehicles are destroyed in the chase.
Norco is a city in northwestern Riverside County, California, United States. Located roughly 40 miles (64Â km) inland from the Pacific Ocean, Norco is known as "Horsetown, USA" and prides itself on...
LOT Flight 5055 Tadeusz KoĹciuszko crashes after takeoff in Warsaw, Poland, killing all 183 people on board.
LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Warsaw to New York City. In the late-morning hours of 9 May 1987, the Ilyushin Il-62 operating the flight crashed...
New Parliament House, Canberra officially opens.
Parliament House is the meeting place of the Parliament of Australia, the legislative branch of Australia's federal tier of government. The building also houses the core of the executive, containing...
Armenian forces capture Shusha, marking a major turning point in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the...
Westray Mine disaster kills 26 workers in Nova Scotia, Canada.
The Westray Mine was a Canadian coal mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia. Westray was owned and operated by Curragh Resources Incorporated, which obtained both provincial and federal government money to...
Mother's Day bus crash kills 22 passengers and injures another 22, including the driver in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.
The Mother's Day bus crash occurred on May 9, 1999, on Interstate 610 (I-610) in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, when a charter bus carrying 43 passengers veered off the roadway and collided...
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.
Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated with the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with CĂ´te d'Ivoire to the west,...
The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected terrorists among them deported to several different countries.
From 2 April to 10 May 2002, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the West Bank was besieged by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), targeting suspected Palestinian militants who had taken shelter...
Barisan Nasional, the coalition that had governed Malaysia since the country's independence in 1957, suffer a historic defeat in the 2018 Malaysian general election.
Barisan Nasional is a political coalition in Malaysia. It was founded in 1974 as a coalition of centre-right and right-wing ethnic political parties to succeed the Alliance Party, and had first...
The COVID-19 recession causes the U.S. unemployment rate to hit 14.9 percent, its worst rate since the Great Depression.
The COVID-19 recession was a global economic recession caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. The recession began in most countries in February 2020. After a year of global economic slowdown that saw...
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.
The Russo-Ukrainian war began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia occupied Crimea and annexed it from Ukraine. It then supported Russian separatist...
The May 9 riots following the arrest of Imran Khan in Pakistan.
Following the arrest of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and former prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, from the grounds of the Islamabad High Court, nationwide demonstrations held by...