October 9th, on this day

680 Husayn ibn 'Ali, Shi'i religious leader, enters martyrdom
768 Carloman I and Charlemagne are crowned Kings of The Franks.
1000 Leif Ericson discovers "Vinland" (possibly New England)
1238 James I of Aragon conquers Valencia and founds the Kingdom of Valencia.
1446 The hangul alphabet is published in Korea.
1514 Marriage of Louis XII of France and Mary Tudor
1582 Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
1595 The Spanish army captures Cambrai.
1604 Supernova 1604, the most recent supernova to be observed in the Milky Way. 1635 Religious dissident Roger Williams banished from Mass Bay Colony
1635 Founder of Rhode Island Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident after he speaks out against punishments for religious offenses and giving away Native American land.
1701 Yale College in the United States of America receives its charter
1760 7 Year's War: Russian forces occupy Berlin.
1771 The Dutch merchant ship Vrouw Maria sinks near the coast of Finland.
1779 First 'Luddite' riots break out in a lace factory in Loughborough, England, as workers protest
against labour-saving machinery which is likely to make them redundant. Similar riots begin in Manchester
1799 Sinking of HMS Lutine, with the loss of 240 men and a cargo worth £1,200,000.
1804 The city of Hobart is founded in Tasmania - the island off the southern coast of mainland Australia
1806 Prussia declares war on France.
1812 War of 1812: In a naval engagement on Lake Erie, American forces capture two British ships: HMS Detroit and HMS Caledonia.
1820 Guayaquil, Ecuador declares its freedom from Ecuador
1824 Slavery is abolished in Costa Rica.
1831 Capo d'Istria is assassinated.
1837 Steamboat "Home" sinks off Okracoke, NC killing 100
1854 The siege of Sebastopol begins. French and British engineers began to direct the building of siege lines along the south of Sevastopol.
1855 Joshua Stoddard of Worcester, Mass patents 1st calliope
1861 Battle of Santa Rosa Island - Union troops repel Confederate attempt to capture Fort Pickens.
1864 Battle of Tom's Brook - Union cavalrymen in the Shenandoah Valley defeat Confederate forces at Tom's Brook, Virginia.
1871 The Great Chicago Fire is brought under control.
1874 General Postal Union is created as a result of the Treaty of Berne.
1876 1st 2-way telephone conversation, 1st over outdoor wires
1888 The official opening of the 555ft white marble Washington Monument - designed by Robert Mills
1899 An ultimatum to the British from Boer leader Paul Kruger prompts the Second Anglo-Boer War in southern Africa
1905 World famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt suffers a tragic accident while playing 'Floria' in 'Tosca'.
Jumping from a parapet, she falls heavily on her right leg because stage hands have forgotten to prepare
the mattress for her to land on. Her badly injured leg is later amputated
1911 Britain launches its super-Dreadnaught battleship HMS King George V at Portsmouth
1914 Siege of Antwerp - Antwerp, Belgium falls to German troops.
1919 Black Sox scandal: The Cincinnati Reds "win" the World Series.
1924 In Britain, the Irish Free State Bill receives the Royal Assent
1930 1st transcontinental flight by a woman completed, Laura Ingalls
1934 Assassination of Alexander , King of Yugoslavia and the French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou by Croatian terrorists in Marseilles
1936 Hoover Dam begins transmitting electricity to LA
1940 Battle of Britain - During a nighttime air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul's Cathedral in the City of London, England is hit by a bomb.
1941 A coup in Panama declares Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango the new president.
1942 Statute of Westminster 1931 formalises Australian autonomy.
1942 The last day of the October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces withdraw back across the Matanikau River after destroying most of the Imperial Japanese Army's 4th Infantry Regiment.
1945 Parade in NYC for Fleet Admiral Nimitz and 13 USN/USMC Medal of Honor recipients
1946 1st electric blanket manufactured; sold for $39.50
1947 1st telephone conversation between a moving car and a plane
1961 Tanganyika becomes independent within the British Commonwealth
1961 A volcano erupting on the island of Tristan da Cunha forces Britain to evacuate more than 260 islanders
1962 Uganda becomes a republic within the British Commonwealth
1963 In northeast Italy, over 2,000 people are killed when a large landslide behind the Vajont Dam causes a giant wave of water to overtop it.
1965 Beatles' "Yesterday," single goes to number 1 and stays for 4 weeks
1967 Revolutionary leader Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, the Argentinian-born guerilla fighter, is captured in Bolivia and shot
1968 Government seizes oil fields in Peru
1968 British prime minister Harold Wilson meets Rhodesian premier Ian Smith aboard HMS Fearless in Gibraltar
to discuss Rhodesia's decision to declare UDI -a Universal Declaration of Independence
1969 In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in for crowd control as demonstrations continue in connection with the trial of the "Chicago Eight" (trial started on September 24).
1970 Khmer Republic (Cambodia) declares independence
1973 Elvis and Priscilla Presley divorce after 6 years
1975 Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov wins Nobel Peace Prize
1977 Soyuz 25 launched to Saluyt 6, but returned after failing to dock
1980 1st consumer use of home banking by computer (Knoxville, Tn)
1980 Princess Caroline of Monaco divorces Philippe Junot
1980 British playwright Harold Pinter marries author Lady Antonia Fraser - the former wife of Conservative MP Sir Hugh Fraser
1981 Abolition of capital punishment in France.
1983 Rangoon bombing: attempted assassination of South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan during an official visit to Rangoon, Burma. Chun survives but the blast kills 17 of his entourage, including four cabinet ministers, and 17 others were injured. Four Burmese officials also die in the blast.
1983 4 South Korean cabinet ministers assassinated in Rangoon Burma
1984 Kathy Sullivan becomes 1st US woman to walk in space
1986 Senate convicted US District Judge Harry E Claiborne making him the 5th federal official to be removed from office through impeachment
1986 The musical The Phantom of the Opera has its first performance at Her Majesty's Theatre in London.
1989 An official news agency in the Soviet Union reports the landing of a UFO in Voronezh.
1989 In Leipzig, East Germany, 70,000 protesters demand the legalisation of opposition groups and democratic reforms.
1989 Penthouse Magazine's hebrew edition hits the newstands
1990 Radio stations around the world play "Imagine" honouring John Lennon
1990 Saddam threatens to hit Israel with a new missile
1990 Hundreds of Chinese queue to buy 'Big Macs' when McDonald's opens its first resturant in China in Shenzhen
1992 A 13 kilogram (est.) meteorite lands in the driveway of the Knapp residence in Peekskill, New York, destroying the family's 1980 Chevrolet Malibu
1997 The campaign to ban landmines, a cause made popular by Diana, Princess of Wales before her death, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
1999 The last flight of the SR-71
2001 Second mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attack.
2006 North Korea allegedly tests its first nuclear device.
2007 The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at an all-time high.

9th October 2005

Quake crisis overwhelms Pakistan

Fears mount for mudslide victims

Turkey culls birds to stem virus

9th October 2006

Outcry at N Korea 'nuclear test'

Sudan 'kills hundreds in Darfur'

Planet enters 'ecological debt'

9th October 2007

Pakistan jets pound 'rebel bases'

Iraqi town rocked by twin attack

Turkey threatens Iraq border raid

9th October 2008

IMF takes action to stem crisis

Bomb hits school bus in Pakistan

'Yom Kippur riot' in Israeli city

9th October 2009

Nobel prize win 'humbles' Obama

Deadly blast hits Pakistan city

Nasa team scours Moon crash data