On this day in history

December 9

30 births · 17 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

Genocide Convention

77 years ago

Born this day

1608

John Milton

Died aged 65

Photo (modified): anonymous · Public domain

Oldest record

977th

Al-Biruni

death anniversary

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Famous births30

Among the famous names born on 9 December is Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born leader who steered India's Congress party for two decades. Read our guide to Sonia Gandhi age and her full birthday facts.

1594 · 431 yrs

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden

Gustavus Adolphus (9 December 1594 – 6 November 1632), also known as Gustav II Adolf or Gustav II Adolph, was King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632. He is credited with the rise of Sweden as a great European power (Swedish: Stormaktstiden).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 37

View profile Photo (modified): Presumably Jacob Hoefnagel · Public domain

1608 · 417 yrs

John Milton

John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and political upheaval.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 65

View profile Photo (modified): anonymous · Public domain

1717 · 308 yrs

Johann Joachim Winckelmann

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (US: VINK-əl-mahn; German:; 9 December 1717 – 8 June 1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the differences between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScholarshipDied aged 50

View profile Photo (modified): Ferdinand Hartmann / After Angelica Kauffmann · Public domain

1742 · 283 yrs

Carl Wilhelm Scheele

Carl Wilhelm Scheele (German:, Swedish:; 9 December 1742 – 21 May 1786) was a German-Swedish pharmaceutical chemist. Scheele discovered oxygen (although Joseph Priestley published his findings first), and identified the elements molybdenum, tungsten, barium, nitrogen, and chlorine, among others.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 43

View profile Photo (modified): Unidentified painter · Public domain

1748 · 277 yrs

Claude Louis Berthollet

Claude Louis Berthollet (French pronunciation:, 9 December 1748 – 6 November 1822) was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 73

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1842 · 183 yrs

Peter Kropotkin

Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist political philosopher and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismDied aged 78

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1868 · 157 yrs

Fritz Haber

Fritz Jakob Haber (German:; 9 December 1868 – 29 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 65

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1895 · 130 yrs

Dolores Ibárruri

Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez (Spanish:; 9 December 1895 – 12 November 1989), also known as Pasionaria ("the passionate one" or Passion flower"), was a Spanish Republican politician during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and a communist. She is renowned for her slogan ¡No Pasarán!

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 130

View profile Photo (modified): Nemo · CC BY-SA 3.0

1906 · 119 yrs

Grace Hopper

Grace Brewster Hopper (née Murray; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer of computer programming.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 119

View profile Photo (modified): James S. Davis · Public domain

1911 · 114 yrs

Broderick Crawford

William Broderick Crawford (December 9, 1911 – April 26, 1986) was an American actor.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 114

View profile Photo (modified): CBS Television · Public domain

1916 · 109 yrs100 Club

Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 109

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown photographer · Public domain

1917 · 108 yrs

James Rainwater

Leo James Rainwater (December 9, 1917 – May 31, 1986) was an American physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975 for his part in determining the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei. During World War II, he worked on the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic bombs.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 108

View profile Photo (modified): Keystone · Public domain

Showing 12 of 30

Famous deaths17

1048 · 977 yrs

Al-Biruni

Abu Reyhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (Persian: ابوریحان محمد بن احمد بیرونی, romanized: Abū-Reyhān Bīrūnī; Arabic: أبو الريحان محمد بن أحمد البيروني; c. 973 – c. 1050), known as Biruni (بیرونی), was a Khwarazmian polymath of the Islamic Golden Age.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 75

View profile Photo (modified): Michel Bakni · CC BY-SA 4.0

1437 · 588 yrs

Sigismund

Sigismund of Luxembourg (15 February 1368 – 9 December 1437) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1433 until his death in 1437. As the husband of Mary, Queen of Hungary, he was King of Hungary and Croatia (jure uxoris) from 1387.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 69

View profile Photo (modified): Formerly attributed to Pisanello · Public domain

1565 · 460 yrs

Pius IV

Pope Pius IV (Italian: Pio IV; 31 March 1499 – 9 December 1565), born Giovanni Angelo Medici, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 December 1559 to his death, in December 1565. Born in Milan, his family considered itself a branch of the House of Medici and used the same coat of arms.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 66

View profile Photo (modified): Circle of Scipione Pulzone · Public domain

1641 · 384 yrs

Anthony van Dyck

Sir Anthony van Dyck (Dutch: Antoon van Dijck; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque artist, who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of Frans van Dyck, a wealthy silk merchant in Antwerp, Anthony painted from an early age.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtDied aged 42

View profile Photo (modified): Anthony van Dyck · Public domain

1669 · 356 yrs

Clement IX

Pope Clement IX (Latin: Clemens IX; Italian: Clemente IX; 28 January 1600 – 9 December 1669), born Giulio Rospigliosi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 20 June 1667 to his death in December 1669.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 69

View profile Photo (modified): Carlo Maratta · Public domain

1916 · 109 yrs

Natsume Sōseki

Natsume Sōseki (Japanese: 夏目漱石; born Natsume Kinnosuke (夏目金之助); 9 February 1867 – 9 December 1916) was a Japanese novelist, poet, and scholar. He is considered one of the greatest writers in modern Japanese history and is often called the first modern novelist of Japan.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 49

View profile Photo (modified): Ogawa Kazumasa · Public domain

1937 · 88 yrs

Nils Gustaf Dalén

Nils Gustaf Dalén (Swedish:; 30 November 1869 – 9 December 1937) was a Swedish engineer and inventor who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1912 "for his invention of automatic regulators for use in conjunction with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and buoys."

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 68

View profile Photo (modified): Atelier Jaeger · Public domain

1971 · 54 yrs

Ralph Bunche

Ralph Johnson Bunche ( BUNCH; August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in the Arab–Israeli conflict. He was the first Black Nobel laureate.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 122

View profile Photo (modified): U.S. Information Agency. · CC BY-SA 2.0

1975 · 50 yrs

William A. Wellman

William Augustus Wellman (February 29, 1896 – December 9, 1975) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and military pilot. He was known for his work in crime, adventure, and action genre films, often focusing on aviation themes, a particular passion.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 130

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1977 · 48 yrs

Clarice Lispector

Clarice Lispector (Portuguese:; née Chaya Pinkhasivna Lispector; December 10, 1920 – December 9, 1977) was a Brazilian novelist and short story writer. Her distinctive and innovative works, which explore diverse narrative forms and themes of intimacy and introspection, have earned her international acclaim.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 105

View profile Photo (modified): Ishiai · CC BY-SA 4.0

1996 · 29 yrs

Mary Leakey

Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA (née Nicol, 6 February 1913 – 9 December 1996) was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape believed to be ancestral to humans. She also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus skull at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, eastern Africa.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScholarshipWould be 113

View profile Photo (modified): National Institutes of Health · Public domain

1996 · 29 yrs

Alain Poher

Alain Émile Louis Marie Poher (French:; 17 April 1909 – 9 December 1996) was a French politician who served as president of the Senate from 1968 to 1992 and as acting president of France in 1969 and 1974.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 117

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Showing 12 of 17

Events5

1824 · 201 yrs

Battle of Ayacucho

The Battle of Ayacucho (Spanish: Batalla de Ayacucho, IPA:) was a decisive military encounter during the Peruvian War of Independence. This battle secured the independence of Peru and ensured independence for the rest of belligerent South American states.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1940 · 85 yrs

Operation Compass

Operation Compass (also Italian: Battaglia della Marmarica) was the first large British military operation of the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) during the Second World War.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1946 · 79 yrs

Nuremberg Medical Trial

United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al., commonly known as the Doctors' Trial, was the first of the twelve "subsequent Nuremberg trials" for war crimes and crimes against humanity after the end of World War II in Europe, the trial taking place between 1946 and 1947.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1948 · 77 yrs

Genocide Convention

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tragedy

2003 · 22 yrs

United Nations Convention Against Corruption

The United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) is the only legally binding international anti-corruption multilateral treaty. Negotiated by member states of the United Nations (UN) it was adopted by the UN General Assembly in October 2003 and entered into force in December 2005.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

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