Events on December 9 58
Year 480
Odoacer, first King of Italy, occupies Dalmatia. He later establishes his political power with the co-operation of the Roman Senate.
Year 536
Gothic War: The Byzantine general Belisarius enters Rome unopposed; the Gothic garrison flee the capital.
Year 730
Battle of Marj Ardabil: The Khazars annihilate an Umayyad army and kill its commander, Al-Jarrah Ibn Abdallah Al-Hakami.
Year 1688
Glorious Revolution: Williamite forces defeat Jacobites at Battle of Reading, forcing flight of James II from the country.
Year 1775
American Revolutionary War: British troops lose the Battle of Great Bridge, and leave Virginia soon afterward.
Year 1793
New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.
Year 1824
Patriot forces led by General Antonio José de Sucre defeat a Royalist army in the Battle of Ayacucho, putting an end to the Peruvian War of Independence.
Year 1861
American Civil War: The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War is established by the U.S. Congress.
Year 1872
In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first African-American governor of a U.S. state.
Year 1875
The Massachusetts Rifle Association, "America's Oldest Active Gun Club", is founded.
Year 1897
Activist Marguerite Durand founds the feminist daily newspaper La Fronde in Paris.
Year 1911
A mine explosion near Briceville, Tennessee, kills 84 miners despite rescue efforts led by the United States Bureau of Mines.
Year 1931
The Constituent Cortes approves a constitution which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.
Year 1935
Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in a gangland murder.
Year 1935
The Downtown Athletic Club Trophy, later renamed the Heisman Trophy, is awarded for the first time. The winner is halfback Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago.
Year 1937
Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking: Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launch an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing (Nanking).
Year 1940
World War II: Operation Compass: British and Indian troops under the command of Major-General Richard O'Connor attack Italian forces near Sidi Barrani in Egypt.
Year 1941
World War II: The Republic of China, Cuba, Guatemala, and the Philippine Commonwealth, declare war on Germany and Japan.
Year 1941
World War II: The American 19th Bombardment Group attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon.
Year 1946
The "Subsequent Nuremberg trials" begin with the "Doctors' trial", prosecuting physicians and officers alleged to be involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia.
Year 1946
The Constituent Assembly of India meets for the first time to write the Constitution of India.
Year 1950
Cold War: Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Year 1953
Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.
Year 1956
Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, a Canadair North Star, crashes near Hope, British Columbia, Canada, killing all 62 people on board.
Year 1960
The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
Year 1965
Kecksburg UFO incident: A fireball is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; witnesses report something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh. In 2005 NASA admits that it examined the object.
Year 1965
A Charlie Brown Christmas, first in a series of Peanuts television specials, debuts on CBS.
Year 1968
Douglas Engelbart gave what became known as "The Mother of All Demos", publicly debuting the computer mouse, hypertext, and the bit-mapped graphical user interface using the oN-Line System (NLS).
Year 1969
U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers proposes his plan for a ceasefire in the War of Attrition; Egypt and Jordan accept it over the objections of the PLO, which leads to civil war in Jordan in September 1970.
Year 1971
Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Air Force executes an airdrop of Indian Army units, bypassing Pakistani defences.
Year 1973
British and Irish authorities sign the Sunningdale Agreement in an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland.
Year 1979
The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.
Year 1987
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Year 1996
Gwen Jacob is acquitted of committing an indecent act, giving women the right to be topfree in Ontario, Canada.
Year 2008
The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is arrested by federal officials for crimes including attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
Year 2013
At least seven are dead and 63 are injured following a train accident near Bintaro, Indonesia.
Year 2016
President Park Geun-hye of South Korea is impeached by the country's National Assembly in response to a major political scandal. Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn becomes Acting President, later denying to run for a full term.
Year 2016
At least 57 people are killed and a further 177 injured when two schoolgirl suicide bombers attack a market area in Madagali, Northeastern Nigeria in the Madagali suicide bombings.