1909 CE

American explorer Robert Peary claims to reach the North Pole, sparking debate over who arrived first; The Adana massacre in the Ottoman Empire kills thousands of Armenians; The Cherry Mine disaster in Illinois claims 259 miners, one of the deadliest U.S. coal accidents; The New York shirtwaist strike of 1909 sees mainly immigrant women demand better wages and working conditions in the largest U.S. women's strike; The Second Melillan campaign involves Spain fighting Rif tribes in northern Morocco; The 31 March Incident in the Ottoman Empire is suppressed, strengthening Young Turk control.

In the 1900s, the 20th century.

1909 at a glance

World population
about 1.75 billion Our World in Data
U.S. president
Theodore Roosevelt, then William Howard Taft (from March 4) Wikidata
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, head of state
Edward VII Wikidata
Canada, head of government
Wilfrid Laurier Wikidata

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.source
  • January 11 – The International Joint Commission on US-Canada boundary waters is established.source
  • 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.source
  • March 10 – The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 is signed in Bangkok.source
  • March 22 – 1909 Alberta election: Alexander Rutherford's Liberals win a second consecutive majority.Canadasource
  • April 27 – Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Abdul Hamid II is overthrown and succeeded by his brother, Mehmed V.source
  • 2 June – The Labor government of Andrew Fisher is ousted from office by Alfred Deakin's Fusion Party, and Deakin becomes Prime Minister for the third time.Australiasource
  • 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 the Russian Empire, reportedly seeking the assistance of Nicholas II of Russia in regaining the throne.source
  • 8 September: The Velarde-Río Branco treaty between Brazil and Peru is signed, establishing borders south of the Yavarí.Brazilsource
  • October 24 – At the Italian city of Racconigi, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was hosted by King Victor Emmanuel III. The foreign ministers the two nations, Tommaso Tittoni and Aleksandr Izvolsky, exchanged diplomatic notes on an informal agreement, known as the Racconigi Bargain, for Russia and Italy to support each other's interests in the Balkans and in the Ottoman Empire. Italy and the Russian Empire concluded another agreement with Austro-Hungarian Empire a few days later disregarding this agreement.Italysource
  • December 23 – Albert I sworn in as King, following the death of his uncle King Leopold II, on December 17Belgiumsource
  • South Africa becomes the first non-European country to join FIFA.South Africasource
  • Chinese provinces (except Xinjiang) hold elections for the first time, for provincial legislatures and the National Assembly.Chinasource
  • The 1909 Parliamentary election takes place.Norwaysource

Conflict & Security

  • January 28 – The last United States troops leave Cuba, after being there since the Spanish–American War of 1898.source
  • January 28 – U.S. troops leave Cuba after being there since the Spanish–American War.United Statessource
  • 28 March – Hans Henrik Wærenskjold, politician (born 1820)Norwaysource
  • March 31 – Serbia accepts Austrian control over Bosnia and Herzegovina.source
  • April 13 (March 31 by Eastern reckoning) – A countercoup begins in the Ottoman Empire.source
  • April 14 – Adana massacre: Ottoman Turks kill 15,000–30,000 Armenian Christians, in the Adana Vilayet.source
  • 17 April – 58 police officers and sixty other people are injured as 6,000 fans invade the pitch and brawl with rival fans and the police at the end of the drawn Scottish Cup Final replay between Rangers and Celtic at Hampden Park, Glasgow. The 1909 Scottish Cup and all medals are withheld.Scotlandsource
  • 20 April - Russian intervention in Persia beginsRussiasource
  • June 2 – French forces capture Abéché, capital of the Wadai Empire in central Africa.source
  • July 1 – In London, Indian nationalist student Madan Lal Dhingra assassinates Curzon Wyllie, political aide to the Secretary of State for India.source
  • July 25–August 2 – "Tragic Week" (La Semana Trágica/la Setmana Tràgica): The city of Barcelona experiences a workers' uprising.source
  • July: Tragic Week (25 July – 2 August 1909); a series of bloody confrontations between the Spanish army and the working classes of Barcelona and other cities of Catalonia, who anarchists, socialists and republicans supported.Spainsource
  • 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.source
  • 21 December – British Field Marshal Lord Kitchener arrives in Darwin after an invitation from Alfred Deakin to review Australia's military and defence plans.Australiasource
  • December – Thomas "Toya" Lewis is awarded the Albert Medal by Edward VII for his heroism in rescuing survivors of the Newport Dock collapse on 2 July.Walessource
  • Auckland defend the Ranfurly Shield only once, beating Taranaki 18–5New Zealandsource

Exploration & Expansion

  • 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.source
  • 9 January – Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole forced to turn back 112 miles from the pole.United Kingdomsource
  • January 16 – Members of the Nimrod Expedition claim to have found the magnetic South Pole (but the location recorded may be incorrect).source
  • 16 January – Edgeworth David is a member of the expedition which successfully reaches the Magnetic South Pole.Walessource
  • 1 April – Natal – Vryheid East to Hlobane, 17 mi.South Africasource
  • April 6 – Robert Peary, Matthew Henson and four Inuit explorers – Ootah, Ooqueah, Seegloo and Egigingwah – come within a few miles of the North Pole.source
  • April 6 – Robert Peary claims to have reached the North Pole.Canadasource
  • June 9–August 7 – Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, becomes the first woman to drive across the United States. In 59 days, she drives a Maxwell automobile 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York to San Francisco, California with three non-driving female companions.United Statessource
  • 7 July – Arne Larsen, cross-country skierNorwaysource
  • Pablo Picasso - Femme à l'éventailFrancesource
  • New Zealand Trotting Cup: Wildwood JuniorNew Zealandsource

Religion & Belief

  • March 21 – The remains of the Báb are placed in the Baháʼí Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel in Haifa, at this time within the Ottoman Empire.source
  • 1 April – Lennox Robinson's first play, The Cross Roads, was performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin; he became the theatre manager later in the year.Irelandsource
  • 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 (at this time in the Ottoman Empire).source
  • April 18 – Joan of Arc is beatified in Rome.source
  • 9 July – Vilhelm Andreas Wexelsen, bishop and politician (born 1849)Norwaysource
  • 1 August - Tour de France ends, won by François Faber of Luxembourg.Francesource
  • 23 November – Otto Sinding, painter (born 1842)Norwaysource
  • 20 December – Thomas Thomas is awarded the first Lonsdale Belt at middleweight.Walessource
  • Monarch – Victor Emmanuel III (1900–1946)Italysource
  • Heavyweight – M. Ryan (Invercargill)New Zealandsource
  • Middleweight – S. Monaghan (Ohakune)New Zealandsource

Economy & Finance

  • January 2 - The Qing government dismissed Yuan Shikai.Chinasource
  • April 9 – The Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act is passed in the United States Congress.source
  • April 19 – The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (modern-day BP) is incorporated.source
  • 26 May – The Protectionist Party and the Free Trade Party merge to form the Fusion Party, led by Alfred Deakin.Australiasource
  • 30 July – Société Française de teintures inoffersires, as predecessor of L'Oréal was founded.Francesource
  • August 2 – The US Mint releases the 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent, discontinuing it on August 5 because it shows the initials of engraver Victor David Brenner.United Statessource
  • 20 October – the Trade Boards Act, a form of minimum wage legislation, is passed.United Kingdomsource
  • Thorvald Meyer, businessperson (born 1818)Norwaysource
  • Bøicke Johan Rulffs Koren, politician and Minister (born 1828)Norwaysource
  • The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland is founded by Thomas Haining Gillespie, an Edinburgh lawyer.Scotlandsource

Technology & Infrastructure

  • 14 February: The first North Island Main Trunk passenger express train leaves Auckland for Wellington, an overnight trip scheduled to take 19 hours 15 minutes, with a sleeping car, day cars with reclining seats, postal/parcels vans, and a dining car for part of the way.New Zealandsource
  • March 18 – Einar Dessau uses a shortwave radio transmitter in Denmark.source
  • March 31 – Construction begins on the RMS Titanic, at the Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast.source
  • 30 April – Tasmania begins to use the Hare-Clark single transferable vote method in the 1909 general election.Australiasource
  • May 2 – Francesco Ciuppa wins the 1909 Targa Florio endurance automobile race on Sicily.Italysource
  • 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.source
  • August 2 – The United States Army Signal Corp Division purchases the world's first military airplane, a Wright Military Flyer, from the Wright brothers.source
  • September 4 – Japan and China sign the Gando Convention, which gives Japan a way to receive railroad concessions in Manchuria.source
  • 19 September: The country's first automobile race is held at the São Gonçalo circuit in Rio de Janeiro.Brazilsource
  • October 13 – An agreement by Germany, Italy and Switzerland gives the Germans and Italians access to the Gotthard Rail Tunnel.source
  • October – Suzuki Weaving Machine Manufacturing, predecessor of the Suzuki motorbike and compact car brand in Japan, is founded in Shizuoka Prefecture.source
  • October Unknown date – Motorbike and compact car brand Suzuki founded, as predecessor name is Suzuki Weaving Machine Manufacturing.Japansource
  • 14 November - first tram line opened in PskovRussiasource
  • 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.source
  • December 28 – The first manned heavier-than-air powered flight in South Africa is made by French aviator Albert Kimmerling by taking off from the Nahoon Racecourse at East London in a Voisin 1907 biplane.South Africasource
  • A team under German chemist Fritz Hofmann first synthesizes synthetic rubber (Methylkautschuk).Germanysource

Science & Discovery

  • February 5 – Leo Baekeland announces the creation of bakelite hard thermosetting plastic.source
  • 19 April: Brazil's new battleship, São Paulo, is launched at Barrow-in-Furness, UK, by Regis de Oliveira, the wife of Brazil's minister to Great Britain.Brazilsource
  • 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.source
  • Mahatma Gandhi embarks in Cape Town for Southampton, England.South Africasource
  • August 8 – The Rosicrucian Fellowship is launched at Seattle, Washington.United Statessource
  • 29 October – The South Melbourne Swans defeat the Carlton Blues 4.14 (38) to 4.12 (36) in the 1909 VFL Grand Final.Australiasource
  • December 10 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the Nobel Prize for Physics.Italysource
  • 10 December – Selma Lagerlöf becomes the first woman to be given the Nobel Prize in Literature.Swedensource
  • Summer – German Chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch first demonstrate the Haber process, the catalytic formation of ammonia from hydrogen and atmospheric nitrogen under conditions of high temperature and pressure.Germanysource
  • Welterweight – G. Watchorn (Palmerston North)New Zealandsource

Health & Medicine

  • 1 January: The Quackery Prevention Act 1908 becomes law, preventing false advertising in relation to ingredients, composition, structure, nature or operation of a medicine.New Zealandsource
  • 11 April – coming into effect of Children Act 1908 (8 Edw. 7. c. 67), establishing separate juvenile courts for 10–16-year-olds; abolishing the use of custody for under-fourteens and hanging for under-sixteens; introducing the registration of foster parents; and restricting access for under-16s to cigarettes and alcohol.United Kingdomsource
  • 14 April: Physician Carlos Chagas discovers a tropical parasitic disease caused by the flagellated cinetoplastid protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, in the mining town of Lassance.Brazilsource
  • July – Ivy Evelyn Woodward is admitted as the first woman Member of the Royal College of Physicians.United Kingdomsource
  • September – Sigmund Freud, having arrived on August 29 in New York, delivers his only lectures in the United States, on psychoanalysis, at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, giving public recognition to the subject in the anglophone world.United Statessource
  • 30 November – Elise Aubert, novelist, short-story writer, and non-fiction writer (born 1837).Norwaysource
  • Karl Landsteiner, Constantin Levaditi and Erwin Popper first isolate the poliovirus.source
  • The Mater Infirmorum Hospital in Belfast was officially recognised as a university teaching hospital.Irelandsource

Crime & Justice

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 24 – The White Star Line RMS Republic sinks the day after a collision with SS Florida off Nantucket. Almost all of the 1,500 passengers are rescued.source
  • 12 February: Inter-island steamer SS Penguin is wrecked at Cape Terawhiti in Cook Strait with the loss of 75 lives.New Zealandsource
  • 6 March – Birkenhead dock disaster: a temporary cofferdam collapses during construction of Vittoria Dock, killing 14 navvies.United Kingdomsource
  • July 26 – Blue Anchor Line passenger/cargo liner SS Waratah, on her second voyage from Australia to Britain, leaves Durban and is lost without trace with all 211 aboard.source
  • 29 October – A mining accident at Darren Colliery, New Tredegar, kills 26 men.Walessource
  • November 8 – Fire at Robert Morrison fibroid comb factory in New York City kills 9.United Statessource
  • 3 December – the SS Ellan Vannin sinks in Liverpool Bay resulting in the loss of all 15 passengers and 21 crew.United Kingdomsource
  • Presidency-Towns Insolvency ActIndiasource
  • The NGR begins to modify some of its Class C 4-10-2T Reid Tenwheeler locomotives to a 4-8-2T wheel arrangement to make them suitable for yard work without the risk of derailing as a result of the long ten-coupled wheelbase. In 1912 these will be designated Class H2 on the SAR.South Africasource
  • The first mines rescue station in south Wales is opened at Aberaman.Walessource

Climate & Environment

  • January 1–31 – Torrential rain in California sees Helena Mine record 71.54 inch of precipitation for the month, the highest official monthly total in the contiguous United States.United Statessource
  • January 23 – The 7.3 Ml Borujerd earthquake affected central Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing between 6,000–8000.Iransource
  • April 23 – In Portugal, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes near Lisbon, killing at least 60 people.source
  • 17 September – militant suffragette Mabel Capper is among the first to suffer force-feeding while on hunger strike, at Winson Green Prison in Birmingham.United Kingdomsource
  • September 27 – The 5.1 Mfa Wabash River earthquake shook western Indiana with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong), causing light damage.United Statessource
  • October 8 – An earthquake in the Zagreb area leads Andrija Mohorovičić to identify the Mohorovičić discontinuity.source
  • October 11 – The 1909 Florida Keys hurricane makes landfall in the U.S.United Statessource
  • October – Monthly rainfall of 56.5 in is measured at Llyn Llydaw, Snowdonia - a British record.Walessource
  • 18 to 21 August – Disastrous floods strike Victoria.Australiasource

Culture & Society

  • 17 January: The Federal University of Amazonas is founded.Brazilsource
  • April 4 – The association football team Sport Club Internacional is founded in Porto Alegre, Brazil.source
  • 11 April – Ungmennafélagið Afturelding is foundedIcelandsource
  • June 6 – Juventus wins the 1909 Italian National Football Championship.Italysource
  • June 15 – Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lord's Cricket Ground in London and form the Imperial Cricket Conference.source
  • 24 June – The Everton de Viña del Mar football club is founded.Chilesource
  • July 16 – Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last king of Qajar dynasty, ascended to throne.Iransource
  • August 8 – Max Heindel formally founds the Rosicrucian Fellowship in Seattle, Washington.source
  • September 8 – A bottle glass, sheet glass and display product and sales brand, AGC was founded in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, as predecessor name was Asahi Glass.Japansource
  • October 12 – The association football team Coritiba is founded in Curitiba, Brazil.source
  • 26 October – The Olympic Committee of Portugal foundedPortugalsource
  • November 28 – Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 is premièred in New York City with the composer as soloist.source
  • November – New York shirtwaist strike of 1909 begins.United Statessource
  • December 19 – The association football team Borussia Dortmund is founded in Dortmund, Germany.source
  • 19 December: German football club Borussia Dortmund was founded.Germanysource

Births

Deaths

  • January 6 – George Dixon, Canadian-born American boxer (born 1870)source
  • 16 February – West Stanley Pit Disaster, a coal mining disaster in Stanley, County Durham, in which more than 160 miners are killed in an explosion.United Kingdomsource
  • February 17 – Geronimo, Apache leader (born 1829)source
  • March 13 – William Jackson Palmer, American founder of Colorado Springs (born 1836)source
  • April 8 – Helena Modjeska, Polish actress (born 1840)source
  • 18 May - Isaac Albéniz, composer (born 1860)Spainsource
  • June 14 – Afonso Pena, 6th President of Brazil (born 1847)source
  • August 8 – Mary MacKillop, Australian Roman Catholic nun and saint (born 1842)source
  • August 14 – William Stanley, British inventor, engineer (born 1829)source
  • 15 August - Euclides da Cunha, journalist, sociologist and engineer (born 1866)Brazilsource
  • 8 September – José Dias Ferreira, lawyer and politician (born 1837)Portugalsource
  • October 19 – Cesare Lombroso, Italian criminologist, physician (born 1835)source
  • 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, an activist of the Korean independence movement, at the Harbin railway station in Manchuria.source
  • October 26 – Itō Hirobumi, 1st Prime Minister of Japan (assassinated) (born 1841)source
  • October 26 – Itō Hirobumi, statesman (born 1841)Japansource
  • November 14 – Joshua Slocum, Canadian-born American seaman and adventurer (born 1844)source
  • 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.source
  • December 17 – King Leopold II of Belgium (born 1835)source
  • December 26 – Frederic Remington, American cowboy artist, sculptor (born 1864)source