On this day in history

December 9

11 births · 6 deaths · 0 events

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Anniversary highlights

Born this day

1608

John Milton

Would be 417

Oldest record

977th

Al-Biruni

death anniversary

Famous births11

1594 · 431 yrs

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden

Gustavus Adolphus (9 December 1594 – 6 November 1632), also known as Gustav II Adolf or Gustav II Adolph, was King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632. He is credited with the rise of Sweden as a great European power (Swedish: Stormaktstiden).

RoyaltyWould be 431

Photo: Presumably Jacob Hoefnagel · Public domain

1608 · 417 yrs

John Milton

John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and political upheaval.

LiteratureWould be 417

Photo: anonymous · Public domain

1742 · 283 yrs

Carl Wilhelm Scheele

Carl Wilhelm Scheele (German:, Swedish:; 9 December 1742 – 21 May 1786) was a German-Swedish pharmaceutical chemist. Scheele discovered oxygen (although Joseph Priestley published his findings first), and identified the elements molybdenum, tungsten, barium, nitrogen, and chlorine, among others.

ScienceWould be 283

Photo: Unidentified painter · Public domain

1868 · 157 yrs

Fritz Haber

Fritz Jakob Haber (German:; 9 December 1868 – 29 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas.

ScienceWould be 157

Photo: Unknown author · Public domain

1906 · 119 yrs

Grace Hopper

Grace Brewster Hopper (née Murray; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer of computer programming.

ScienceWould be 119

Photo: James S. Davis · Public domain

1916 · 109 yrs

Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck.

FilmWould be 109

Photo: Unknown photographer · Public domain

1920 · 105 yrs

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (Italian:; 9 December 1920 – 16 September 2016) was an Italian politician, statesman and banker who was the president of Italy from 1999 to 2006 and prime minister of Italy from 1993 to 1994.

PoliticsWould be 105

Photo: Unknown author · Attribution

1934 · 91 yrs

Judi Dench

Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Widely considered one of Britain's greatest actresses, she is noted for her versatile roles on stage and screen.

FilmAge 91

Photo: Caroline Bonarde Ucci at https://www.flickr.com/photos/caroline_bonarde/ · CC BY 3.0

1946 · 79 yrs

Sonia Gandhi

Sonia Gandhi (Hindi:, Italian:; née Maino; born 9 December 1946) is an Italian-born Indian politician. She is the longest-serving president of the Indian National Congress, a big-tent liberal political party, which has governed India for most of its post-independence history.

PoliticsAge 79

Photo: U.S. Department of State · Public domain

1953 · 72 yrs

John Malkovich

John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor.

FilmAge 72

Photo: Elena Ternovaja · CC BY-SA 3.0

1954 · 71 yrs

Jean-Claude Juncker

Jean-Claude Juncker (born 9 December 1954) is a Luxembourgish politician who was prime minister of Luxembourg from 1995 to 2013 and president of the European Commission from 2014 to 2019. He was also Luxembourg's Finance Minister from 1989 to 2009 and President of the Eurogroup from 2005 to 2013.

PoliticsAge 71

Photo: euranet_plus · CC BY-SA 2.0

Famous deaths6

1048 · 977 yrs

Al-Biruni

Abu Reyhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (Persian: ابوریحان محمد بن احمد بیرونی, romanized: Abū-Reyhān Bīrūnī; Arabic: أبو الريحان محمد بن أحمد البيروني; c. 973 – c. 1050), known as Biruni (بیرونی), was a Khwarazmian polymath of the Islamic Golden Age.

ScienceWould be 1053

Photo: Michel Bakni · CC BY-SA 4.0

1565 · 460 yrs

Pius IV

Pope Pius IV (Italian: Pio IV; 31 March 1499 – 9 December 1565), born Giovanni Angelo Medici, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 December 1559 to his death, in December 1565. Born in Milan, his family considered itself a branch of the House of Medici and used the same coat of arms.

ReligionWould be 527

Photo: Circle of Scipione Pulzone · Public domain

1641 · 384 yrs

Anthony van Dyck

Sir Anthony van Dyck (Dutch: Antoon van Dijck; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque artist, who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of Frans van Dyck, a wealthy silk merchant in Antwerp, Anthony painted from an early age.

ArtWould be 427

Photo: Anthony van Dyck · Public domain

1669 · 356 yrs

Clement IX

Pope Clement IX (Latin: Clemens IX; Italian: Clemente IX; 28 January 1600 – 9 December 1669), born Giulio Rospigliosi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 20 June 1667 to his death in December 1669.

ReligionWould be 426

Photo: Carlo Maratta · Public domain

1937 · 88 yrs

Nils Gustaf Dalén

Nils Gustaf Dalén (Swedish:; 30 November 1869 – 9 December 1937) was a Swedish engineer and inventor who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1912 "for his invention of automatic regulators for use in conjunction with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and buoys."

ScienceWould be 156

Photo: Atelier Jaeger · Public domain

2018 · 7 yrs

Riccardo Giacconi

Riccardo Giacconi ( jə-KOH-nee, Italian:; October 6, 1931 – December 9, 2018) was an Italian-American Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist who laid down the foundations of X-ray astronomy. He was a professor at the Johns Hopkins University.

ScienceWould be 94

Photo: Unknown author · Public domain

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