On This Day

What Happened on February 9 in History

9 events that happened on February 9, oldest first. Every entry is written in our own words and links to its source.

The Young Republic and the Civil War Era

1825
The House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams president after no candidate wins an electoral majority.
Andrew Jackson had led in electoral votes, but under the Twelfth Amendment each state delegation in the House cast one vote among the top three finishers. Adams won on the first ballot with support from Henry Clay, whom he then named secretary of state, and Jackson's backers denounced a corrupt bargain.
Source: history.house.gov; millercenter.org
1870
President Ulysses S. Grant signs the resolution creating a national weather service.
Congress directed the Army to take weather observations at military posts and to warn of storms on the Great Lakes and the coasts. The service began in the Signal Corps, moved to the Department of Agriculture as the Weather Bureau in 1891, and is today's National Weather Service.
Source: weather.gov; millercenter.org

1910
Jacques Monod, the French biologist who showed how genes are switched on and off, is born in Paris.
With Francois Jacob, Monod worked out how bacteria turn genes on and off, a founding idea of molecular biology. The two shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Andre Lwoff.
Source: archive.nytimes.com
1918
Ukraine signs a separate peace with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk.
The young Ukrainian People's Republic agreed to supply grain to Germany and Austria-Hungary in return for recognition and military support against the Bolsheviks. It was the first peace treaty of World War I, and it was soon followed by Soviet Russia's own treaty at Brest-Litovsk in March.
Source: history.com
1943
The Battle of Guadalcanal ends as American forces secure the island after six months of fighting.
U.S. Marines had landed in August 1942 to seize an airfield the Japanese were building in the Solomon Islands. After a long struggle on land, at sea and in the air, Japan withdrew its remaining troops, and the campaign marked the first major Allied land offensive against Japan.
Source: archive.nytimes.com

1950
Senator Joseph McCarthy claims in a Wheeling speech that Communists work inside the State Department.
Speaking to a Republican women's club in West Virginia, McCarthy said he held a list of State Department employees who were members of the Communist Party, though the number he cited kept changing. The speech made him a national figure and gave its name to the Second Red Scare known as McCarthyism.
Source: history.com; millercenter.org
1964
The Beatles make their first live American TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
An estimated 73 million viewers tuned in to watch the band from Liverpool perform, a record audience for American television at the time. The broadcast launched Beatlemania in the United States and opened the door for the so-called British Invasion of pop music.
Source: history.com; pbs.org
1971
A powerful earthquake strikes the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles before dawn.
The quake collapsed buildings at a Veterans Administration hospital and badly damaged the Lower Van Norman Dam, forcing tens of thousands of residents to evacuate. California responded with stricter building codes and a 1972 law limiting construction on active faults.
Source: scedc.caltech.edu

1995
Astronaut Bernard Harris becomes the first African American to walk in space.
Harris and British-born astronaut Michael Foale left the shuttle Discovery during the STS-63 mission to test changes to spacesuits meant to keep spacewalkers warm. Their outing was cut short when both men reported feeling very cold.
Source: history.com; nasa.gov