October 9

768 Charlemagne was crowned King of The Franks along with his brother Carloman I on October 9, 768 following the death of his father, Pepin the Short. Carloman's sudden death on December 4, 771 under unexplained circumstances left Charlemagne as the undisputed ruler of the Frankish Kingdom.

Depiction of Charlemagne in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France

1446 The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul in South Korea and elsewhere and as Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea and China was created by scholars during the Joseon Dynasty. It was described in 1446 in a document titled Hunmin Jeong-eum ("The Proper Sounds for the Education of the People"), after which the alphabet itself was named.  The publication date of the Hunmin Jeong-eum, October 9, is a national commemorative day in South Korea, which is called Hangul Day.

1780 The Great Hurricane of 1780 was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane in recorded history. Coming during a very active hurricane season, the storm formed on October 9, 1780 and struck Barbados the next day with winds possibly exceeding 200 mph. It then passed over several other islands, leaving mass destruction in its wake. Thousands of deaths were reported on each island, and more than 20,000 people had died by the time the storm dissipated.

1793 Tsar Alexander I of Russia married Louise of Baden, known as Elisabeth Alexeyevna, on October 9, 1793 at the Winter Palace when he was 15 and she was 14. Initially the union was happy. Elisabeth was beautiful, but shy and withdrawn. Alexander later told his friend Frederick William III that the marriage, a political match devised by his grandmother, Catherine the Great, had regrettably proved to be a misfortune for him and his wife. They had two daughters, both of whom died in early childhood.

Alexander and Louise of Baden

1835 French composer and conductor Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was born on October 9, 1835, in Paris. When Charles-Camille was three months old his father died after which he was raised by his mother and an aunt, who taught him to play the piano. The precocious child composed a piano piece soon after his third birthday and he gave a full debut concert in 1846.

1855 The calliope is a steam organ patented by J C Stoddard of Worcester, Massachusetts, on October 9, 1855. At the end of a circus procession marching down the main street would be a screaming steam calliope, telling everyone the circus had come to town. Calliopes were fitted to the top decks of river showboats, and could be heard for miles around playing popular tunes. They were also heard as part of some merry-go-rounds in amusement parks.

"Calliope, the wonderful operonicon or steam car of the muses" – advertising poster, 1874

1875 The first official football match programs were sold at a Queens Park v Wanderers game in Glasgow on October 9, 1875. The programs were simple affairs, consisting of a single sheet of paper with the team names, player positions, and other basic information. 

1876 The inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell made the first two-way long-distance telephone call between Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts on October 9, 1876. Alexander Graham Bell recommended answering calls with the word 'Ahoy'. It was Thomas Edison who suggested saying 'Hello'. The word had usually been spelt 'hallo' or 'hullo' before he introduced 'hello' for phone calls.

1888 The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., officially opened to the general public on October 9, 1888. It had been dedicated earlier, on February 21, 1885, but it took several more years to complete the interior and install the elevator before it could be opened for public visits. At 555 feet 5 1/8 inches (169 meters) it held the title of the world's tallest building until the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889, which surpassed it at 1,083 feet (330 meters). 

1890 The Pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson was born Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy on a farm in Salford, Ontario, Canada on October 9, 1890. She had early exposure to religion through her mother, Minnie, who worked with the poor in Salvation Army soup kitchens. McPherson used radio to promote her message in the 1920's and 30's. Her preaching style, extensive charity work and ecumenical contributions were a major influence to Charismatic Christianity in the 20th century.

1897 The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams married on October 9, 1897 Adeline Fisher, the daughter of Herbert Fisher, an old friend of the Vaughan Williams family. They honeymooned for several months in Berlin, where he studied with Max Bruch. There were no children from their marriage.

1900 The Russian battleship Potemkin was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet and launched on October 9, 1900. She was named for Grigori Potemkin (1739-91) who was for 20 years Catherine the Great's chief advisor and built the Black Sea Fleet. The crew's famous mutiny against the officers on June 27, 1905 (during that year's revolution) is now viewed as a first step towards the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Imperial Russian battleship Panteleimon (former Potemkin), 1906

1906 Leopold Sedar Senghor was born on October 9, 1906. The leader of the Sengalese Progressive Union, he was Senegal's first president. Senghor was also Prime Minister between 1962-70. Pro-African, he advocated a brand of African socialism. Educated in France, Senghor was a poet and he personally drafted the Senegalese national anthem, "Pincez tous vos koras, frappez les balafons".

1915 The First World War was ignited on July 28, 1914 when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The following day the Serbian city of Belgrade was shelled by Austro-Hungarians and most of the subsequent Balkan offensives occurred near the city. Belgrade fell to German and Austro-Hungarian troops on October 9, 1915 and was liberated by Serbian and French troops three years later.

1934 The French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou was shot dead on October 9, 1934 in Marseille when Velicko Kerin, a Bulgarian revolutionary nationalist, opened fire. It wasn't revealed until 1974 that Kerin had missed Barthou and the Minister was really killed by a police officer aiming for the revolutionary.

1936 The Hoover Dam began sending electricity over lines spanning 266 miles of mountains and deserts to Los Angeles on October 9, 1936. A total of 21,000 men worked to produce what would be the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest man-made structures in the world and 96 workers died while constructing the dam. Its structural volume surpasses the largest pyramid in Egypt.

1939 Born on October 9, 1939, Willie Lee Morrow trained as a barber and started his first hair salon in San Diego in 1959. One day a friend brought him a gift from Nigeria: a wooden comb meant to tease out curly hair. Inspired, Morrow created what came to be known as the Afro pick. Longer and thinner than the typical comb, it has loose, thick teeth and is used on Afro-textured hair. 

1940 John Lennon was born at Liverpool Maternity Hospital on October 9, 1940. He was brought up by his Aunt Mimi at 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton, South Liverpool. John lived there with her and her husband George Smith, until mid-1963 when he was 22 years old. Through visits with his mother, Julia, John learned to play the banjo and she gave him his first guitar in 1956.

1940 St. Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican church in Central London, England. It sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London. On the night of October 9, 1940, at the height of the London blitz, a bomb hit St Paul’s Cathedral, destroying the high altar. It was one of the few occasions that the 17th-century cathedral suffered significant damage during Germany’s bombing raids on London in the fall of 1940.

The iconic St Paul's Survives taken during the Blitz

1949 Harvard Law School began admitting women on October 9, 1949. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world.

1952 The headquarters of the United Nations occupies a site beside the East River in Manhattan, on land purchased from the real estate developer William Zeckendorf Sr.  A last-minute gift of $8.5 million from John D. Rockefeller allowed the United Nations to set up headquarters there. President Harry S Truman laid the cornerstone at the United Nations headquarters and called it a workshop of peace in October 1949. Construction was completed three years later on October 9, 1952.

1961 It was The Beatles that popularized longer hair for men for the first time in many decades in the 1960s with their bowl haircuts. Their hairstyle was created on October 9, 1961 during a trip to Paris by Jürgen Vollmer after Jean Marair's style in the 1960 Jean Cocteau movie Le Testament d’Orphee.

McCartney, Harrison and Lennon in 1964 By Omroepvereniging

1962 Uganda gained independence from the United Kingdom on October 9, 1962. The flag of Uganda was adopted on the same day. It consists of six equal horizontal bands with a white disc superimposed at the centre containing the national symbol, a grey crowned crane.

1966 Former UK Prime Minister David Cameron was born on October 9, 1966 in Marylebone, London. His father was Ian Donald Cameron a stockbroker, and his mother is Mary Fleur, a retired Justice of the Peace. He helped form and lead the United Kingdom's first coalition government since World War II. When the 43-year-old Cameron took office in 2010 he was the youngest British Prime Minister since the Earl of Liverpool 198 years earlier. 

1967 Alcohol breath tests were introduced in the United Kingdom on October 9, 1967 to curb drunk driving. Licensees throughout the country complained that trade had slumped by up to two-thirds on the first day of the tests. Worst hit were out of-town public houses which rely on motorists for most of their business.

1967 The fitness trainer Joseph Pilates died on October 9, 1967. He was a German working in England when World War 1 broke out. While interned in a prison camp on the Isle of Man, he developed a method of exercise prisoners could perform in confined space using just their own body weight. Pilates called his method "Contrology." Pilates' method of exercise worked well and established a devoted following after the War. The fitness system is now known as Pilates  and is practiced worldwide. 

1980 The Dalai Lama shook hands with Pope John Paul II during a private audience in Vatican City on October 9, 1980. This was a significant event, as it marked the first time that the spiritual leader of Tibet had met with the head of the Catholic Church.

1986 Gaston Leroux's 1910 French novel The Phantom of the Opera was adapted to a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe. It received its first performance at Her Majesty's Theatre in London on October 9, 1986. Each of the performances of the Phantom of the Opera musical uses 230 costumes, 281 candles and ten smoke machines. It is currently the longest running show in Broadway history, and celebrated its 10,000th Broadway performance on February 11, 2012.

2002 Aileen Wuornos, the first female serial killer in America, was charged In 1992 with the shooting of seven middle-aged men at point blank range. She confessed to shooting her victims, but claimed that they had either raped or attempted to rape her while she was working as a prostitute, and that all of the homicides were committed in self-defense. Woornous was convicted and executed by lethal injection on October 9. 2002.

2008 The Obama family's pet dog Bo  was born October 9, 2008. He was a male Portuguese Water Dog, and he was a beloved member of the family for over 12 years before dying in 2021.  Bo's previous owners called him Charlie. He was re-named after Barack Obama's initials, in part as a nod to Michelle Obama's father's nickname Diddley ( a reference to rock 'n' roll singer Bo Diddley.)

Official White House portrait of the First Dog (May 2009)

2009 When he became President of the United States, Barack Obama slowly ended the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the intention of preparing the countries so that they could defend themselves. President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 9, 2009.

2011 Paul McCartney married New Yorker Nancy Shevell, 51, in a civil ceremony at Old Marylebone Town Hall, London, on October 9, 2011. It was the same venue as where  the singer and his first wife, Linda McCartney, married in 1969. The wedding was a modest event attended by a group of about 30 relatives and friends.

2016 Always B Miki is a Champion American Standardbred race horse who at age five set a world record of 1:46 at The Red Mile on October 9, 2016. This broke the previous race world record of 1:46.4 held by four horses (Somebeachsomewhere, He's Watching, Warrawee Needy and Holborn Hanover). It also broke the time trial world record of 1:46.1 set in 1993 by Cambest.

2023 Minnesota horticulture teacher Travis Gienger set a new world record for the heaviest pumpkin at the 50th Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California. His giant gourd weighed in at an astonishing 2,749 pounds (1,246.9 kilograms) on October 9, 2023.