09 February History
- 1567 - Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered his sick-bed in a house in Edinburgh when the house blows up.
- 1799 - The USS Constellation captures the French frigate Insurgente off the West Indies.
- 1825 - The House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams, sixth U.S. President.
- 1861 - Jefferson F. Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.
- 1864 - Union General George Armstrong Custer marries Elizabeth Bacon in their hometown of Monroe, Mich.
- 1904 - Japanese troops land near Seoul, Korea, after disabling two Russian cruisers.
- 1909 - France agrees to recognize German economic interests in Morocco in exchange for political supremacy.
- 1916 - Conscription begins in Great Britain as the Military Service Act becomes effective.
- 1922 - The U.S. Congress establishes the World War Foreign Debt Commission.
- 1942 - Chiang Kai-shek meets with Sir Stafford Cripps, the British viceroy in India.
- 1943 - The Red Army takes back Kursk 15 months after it fell to the Germans.
- 1946 - Stalin announces the new five-year plan for the Soviet Union, calling for production boosts of 50 percent.
- 1951 - Actress Greta Garbo gets U.S. citizenship.
- 1953 - The French destroy six Viet Minh war factories hidden in the jungles of Vietnam.
- 1964 - The U.S. embassy in Moscow is stoned by Chinese and Vietnamese students.
- 1978 - Canada expels 11 Soviets in spying case.
- 1994 - Nelson Mandela becomes the first black president of South Africa.
09 February Birthdays
- 1773 - William Henry Harrison, ninth U.S. President and the first to die in office.
- 1814 - Samuel Tilden, philanthropist.
- 1819 - Lydia E. Pinkham, patent-medicine maker and entrepeneur.
- 1846 - William Maybach, German engineer, designed the first Mercedes automobile.
- 1871 - Howard T. Ricketts, pathologist.
- 1874 - Amy Lowell, poet.
- 1880 - James Stephens, Irish writer (The Charwoman's Daughter, The Crock of Gold).
- 1909 - Dean Rusk, Secretary of State under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
- 1923 - Brendan Behan, Irish playwright and poet (The Hostage, The Quare Fellow).
- 1944 - Alice Walker, Pulitzer prize winning author (The Color Purple).