2009

Millennium:	3rd millennium
Centuries:	20th century 21st century 22nd century
Decades:	1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s
Years:	2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

2009 (MMIX) is the current year, a common year starting on Thursday, January 1 of the Gregorian calendar.

2009 has been designated as the:

• International Year of Astronomy.
• International Year of Natural Fibres.
• International Year of Reconciliation.
• Year of the Ox (by the Chinese calendar)

Events

January

• January 1 - Austria, Japan, Mexico, Turkey, and Uganda assume their seats to the United Nations Security Council.
• January 1 - The Czech Republic takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union from France.
• January 1 - Turkey introduces the 9th emission of the Turkish lira.
• January 1 - Slovakia adopts the euro as its official currency.
• January 1 - The Swedish pharmacy monopoly ends.
• January 1 - Norway legalizes same-sex marriage and Hungary recognizes registered partnerships.
• January 1 - The European small claims procedure comes into force throughout the European Union, other than Denmark. The procedure is applicable to cross-border legal claims under the Brussels Regime with value up to 2,000 euros.
• January 1 - The Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990 (a spelling reform for the Portuguese language) goes into effect in Brazil.
• January 1 - At least 59 people are killed in a fire in Bangkok during New Year celebrations.
• January 1 - A new constitution for the Falkland Islands goes into effect.
• January 1 - Banning of incandescent lightbulbs starts in the Republic of Ireland.
• January 1 - Vilnius (Lithuania) became the European Capital of Culture.

Predicted and scheduled events

January

• January 3 - 111th United States Congress begins. A new delegate will be added for the Northern Mariana Islands.
• January 9 - Mahmoud Abbas's term as President of the Palestinian National Authority will end.
• January 15 - International Year of Astronomy Opening Ceremony at UNESCO HQ, Paris, France.
• January 20 - Inauguration of the new United States President, Barack Obama.
• January 26 - Annular solar eclipse.
• January 26 - Possession of "Extreme pornography" will become illegal in the United Kingdom.

February

• February - The NASA's Dawn spacecraft will flyby Mars for data and gravitational assist en route to Vesta and Ceres.
• February 1 - The International Cospas-Sarsat Satellite System will stop monitoring for 121.5 MHz and 243 MHz (Class B) signals from distress radiobeacons.
• February 2–15 - The FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2009 will take place in Val-d'Isère, France.
• February 8 - The 51st Annual Grammy Awards will be held at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.
• February 12 - Celebration of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday in the United States. The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission has scheduled a series of events in Washington, D.C.
• February 12 - Darwin Day, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Events are already being planned at the London Natural History Museum.
• February 12 - On STS-119, the Space Shuttle Discovery will deliver and install the fourth starboard truss segment on the International Space Station.
• February 13 - The Unix time number reaches 1234567890 seconds at 23:31:30 UTC.
• February 14 - Lithuania will celebrate the millennium of its name.
• February 17 - Analog television broadcasts will mostly end in the United States, as the Federal Communications Commission will require all full power stations to send their signals digitally.
• February 18–28 - The 2009 Winter Universiade will be held in Harbin, China.
• February 22 - The 81st Academy Awards will be held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, California.

March

• March - The United States will begin the first round of negotiations with the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership countries on a possible free trade agreement.
• March 5 - The second World Baseball Classic will begin.
• March 5 - NASA's Kepler Mission, a space photometer which will search for extrasolar planets in the Milky Way galaxy, will be launched.
• March 5–7 - The 2009 Rugby World Cup Sevens will be hosted by Dubai.
• March 14 - Opening ceremony of Lille 3000, Europe XXL
• March 29 - The 60th FIA Formula One World Championship will begin in Melbourne, Australia.

April

• April - Albania and Croatia are expected to join NATO.
• April - The Women's Professional Soccer league will debut.
• April 2–5 - The 100 Hours of Astronomy begins. This is a cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy.
• April 4–6 - The 2009 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Final Four will be held at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan.
• April 13 - Citi Field, which will replace Shea Stadium as the home of the New York Mets, will open with a game against the San Diego Padres.
• April 16 - The New York Yankees will open their new Yankee Stadium, located across the street from the original facility, against the Cleveland Indians.
• April 24 - The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the LCROSS impactor will be launched to the Moon. Part of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP).

May

• May - On STS-125, the Space Shuttle Atlantis will conduct the last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. It will be one of the most advanced missions in space.
• May - General Elections will be held in India.
• May 2 - Presidential Election will take place in Indonesia.
• May 3 - Parliamentary and Presidential Elections will take place in Panama.
• May 12 - General election and referendum on electoral reform will take place in British Columbia, Canada.
• May 15 - On STS-127, the Space Shuttle Endeavour will deliver and install the Exposed Facility of Japan's Kibo laboratory on the International Space Station.
• May 16 - The Final of the 54th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Moscow, Russia.
• May 20 - The UEFA Cup final will be held in Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey. It will be the second European Final held in Istanbul this decade after the 2005 UEFA Champions League Final
• May 25 - Triple conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune, Jupiter 24' south. First of three triple conjunctions of Jupiter and Neptune.
• May 27 - UEFA Champions League Final will be held at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy.
• May 30 - Rededication of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Titled "Retrospective" the ceremony will recreate the program from the original May 30, 1922 ceremony.

June

• June 4-7 - The European Parliament election 2009 will take place, the exact date varies depending on country.
• June 7 - A referendum on changing the Act of Succession will be held in Denmark.
• June 6–13 - The World Air Games will be held in Turin, Italy.
• June 12 - Iran will hold is 10th Presidential Election.

• June 14–28 - The FIFA Confederations Cup will be held in South Africa.

July

• July 1 - Sweden takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from the Czech Republic.
• July 1–12 - The Summer Universiade will take place in Belgrade, Serbia.
• July 3–5 - The Global Conference on Abraham Lincoln at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford.
• July 11 - The Ares I-X test flight of the first stage of the Ares I launch vehicle, the crew launch vehicle of NASA's Constellation program.
• July 13 - Triple conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune, Jupiter 37' south. Second of three triple conjunctions of Jupiter and Neptune.
• July 14 - 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game will be held at the Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri.
• July 22 - Total solar eclipse. The longest lasting total solar eclipse of the 21st century.
• July 30 - On STS-128, the Space Shuttle Atlantis will use the MPLM Donatello to deliver experiment and storage racks to the International Space Station.

August

• August 23–30 - The 2009 World Rowing Championships regatta will be held at the Lake Malta in Poznań, Poland.
• August - The 30th Anniversary of the foundation of the Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association.

September

• September - The Burj Dubai in Dubai, UAE will be completed. It is already the tallest man-made structure ever built.
• September 12 - TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities will open against the Air Force Academy.
• September 14 - Parliamentary election in Norway.
• September 27 - Federal election in Germany.
• September 29 - The NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft will make its final flyby of Mercury, decreasing the velocity for orbital insertion on March 18, 2011.

October

• October - The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will be opened.
• October - Presidential elections in Tunisia.
• October 1 - Denmark will begin turning off Analogue TV.
• October 2 - The host city of the 2016 Summer Olympics will be announced at the 121st Session (which will also be the XIIIth Olympic Congress) of the International Olympic Committee to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• October 10 - The "Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge" (CPAK) will be held at the National Academy of Sciences Beckman Center at the University of California, Irvine.
• October 15 - On STS-129, the Space Shuttle Discovery will deliver integral components including gyroscopes, tank assemblies, and a spare latching end effector for the station's robotic arm to the International Space Station.
• October 25 - Presidential Elections in Uruguay.

November

• November - Singapore will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.
• November - Presidential Elections in Romania.
• November - The retail sale of incandescent light bulbs will be banned in Australia.
• November - The NASA's WISE mission will be launched. It will survey the entire sky in the infrared with far greater sensitivity than any previous mission ever has, over hundreds of millions of astronomical objects will be catalogued.
• November 29 - Presidential Elections in Honduras.
• November 30 - Vancouver, Canada will open the Canada Line rapid transit line connecting Vancouver with Richmond, British Columbia and the Vancouver International Airport.
• November 30 – December 11 - The UNFCCC's COP15 Copenhagen 2009 conference will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark.

December

• December 10 - On STS-130, the Space Shuttle Endeavour will deliver and install the Node 3 and the Cupola on the International Space Station.
• December 11 - Presidential election in Chile.
• December 12 - The Oasis of the Seas cruise ship will make its maiden voyage. When completed it will be the largest passenger ship ever built, carrying 5,400 passengers.
• December 20 - Triple conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune, Jupiter 34' south. Last of three triple conjunctions of Jupiter and Neptune.
• December 31 - The deadline for implementation of the controversial United States legislation REAL ID Act.

Unknown dates

• Apple, Inc. will release another update of their operating system, Mac OS X v10.6 "Snow Leopard".
• Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, will be the American Capital of Culture.
• Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Ukraine and Georgia hope to join NATO program Membership Action Plan, the last step before full membership.
• Completion of the Metro Gold Line (LACMTA) Expansion and the Expo Line in Los Angeles, California.
• Completion of the Three Gorges Dam in China.
• Completion of the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in New Mexico, United States.
• East African Community to implement a common currency called the East African shilling.
• First flight of the SpaceX Dragon commercial manned orbital spacecraft.
• Intel will release as many as five new microprocessor variants of the Nehalem microarchitecture throughout the year. The Beckton variant may have as many as eight cores.
• Jay Leno begins a new late night television talk show, tentatively titled The Jay Leno Show.
• A restart of the Large Hadron Collider is scheduled for summer 2009. The LHC was shut down on 19 september 2008 after problems with a magnet quench.
• New Zealand will stop the sales of incandescent light bulbs.
• Next award of the Sylvester Medal.
• Opening of Tseung Kwan O South Line, MTR, Hong Kong.
• Possible launch of the KEO satellite time capsule. If it is not launched in 2009, it will be launched in 2010.
• Possible start of construction for a fixed-guideway mass transit system for Honolulu.
• RFSA's Phobos-Grunt, sample return from Phobos.
• Tesla Motors will mass produce the Tesla Model S, its second electric car.
• The completion of the Sound Transit Central Link Light Rail system in Seattle.
• The Boeing 747-8 will achieve entry into service (EIS).
• The Compact of Free Association between the United States and Palau expires.
• The final phase of the L.A. Live project will be completed, including a 54-story Ritz-Carlton/JW Marriott hotel and the 14-screen West Coast flagship theatre multiplex operated by the Regal Entertainment Group.
• The Dallas Cowboys New Stadium will be inaugurated.
• The Greenville Bridge will open to traffic.
• The United Kingdom will continue a 5-year process to cease analog television broadcasts region-by-region, with Granada, HTV Wales and Westcountry Television.
• The University of Greenland will move into a new research complex called Llimmarfik.
• Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, is going to be the European Capital of Culture.
• Western Australia will vote on the controversial topic of daylight saving time.
• World Trade Center Tower 5 will have its groundbreaking ceremony in New York City.
• Australia will begin turning off Analogue TV.

Deaths

Main article: Deaths in 2009

January

• January 1 - Helen Suzman, South African anti-apartheid activist and politician (b. 1917)

Major religious holidays

2009 in various calendars

Gregorian calendar	2009 MMIX
Ab urbe condita	2762
Armenian calendar	1458 ԹՎ ՌՆԾԸ
Assyrian calendar	6759
Baháʼí calendar	165–166
Balinese saka calendar	1930–1931
Bengali calendar	1416
Berber calendar	2959
British Regnal year	57 Eliz. 2 – 58 Eliz. 2
Buddhist calendar	2553
Burmese calendar	1371
Byzantine calendar	7517–7518
Chinese calendar	戊子年 (Earth Rat) 4706 or 4499     — to — 己丑年 (Earth Ox) 4707 or 4500
Coptic calendar	1725–1726
Discordian calendar	3175
Ethiopian calendar	2001–2002
Hebrew calendar	5769–5770
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2065–2066
- Shaka Samvat	1930–1931
- Kali Yuga	5109–5110
Holocene calendar	12009
Igbo calendar	1009–1010
Iranian calendar	1387–1388
Islamic calendar	1430–1431
Japanese calendar	Heisei 21 (平成２１年)
Javanese calendar	1941–1942
Juche calendar	98
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4342
Minguo calendar	ROC 98 民國98年
Nanakshahi calendar	541
Thai solar calendar	2552
Tibetan calendar	阳土鼠年 (male Earth-Rat) 2135 or 1754 or 982     — to — 阴土牛年 (female Earth-Ox) 2136 or 1755 or 983
Unix time	1230768000 – 1262303999

• January 6 - Christmas in most Armenian Apostolic Churches of Christianity.
• January 7 - Christmas in most Eastern Orthodox Churches of Christianity.
• February 23 - Shivaratri
• April 12 - Easter
• April 19 - Easter for many Eastern Christians
• May 2 - Buddha's Birthday
• August 6 - Raksha Bandhan
• August 14 - Janmashtmi
• August 23 - Ganesh Chaturthi
• September 2 - Onam
• September 19 - Navratri
• September 28 - Dussehra
• October 17 - Diwali
• November 1 - All Saints' Day for Roman Catholics
• November 27 - Eid al-Adha
• December 25 - Christmas in Western Christianity and some Eastern Orthodox Churches.

2009 in fiction

Computer and video games

Set in 2009:

• Shattered Union (2005): U.S. President David Jefferson Adams is elected in a sham election, and becomes the most unpopular president in U.S. history.
• Abuse (1996)
• Dino Crisis (1999)
• Fahrenheit (also known as Indigo Prophecy)
• Incoming (1998)
• Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (2005): Set in 2009 or 2010.
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001), the Plant chapter occurs on April 29 and April 30, causing devastation to New York City from its coast, when Arsenal Gear crash lands into Federal Hall.
• Splinter Cell Double Agent (2006)
• Mega Man II and Mega Man in Dr. Wily's Revenge
• Army of Two-portion of game set in 2009.
• Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (2007), takes place between April 2009 and March 2010.
• Left 4 Dead is set in the fall of 2009.

Music

• Tokyo Police Club's song "Citizens of Tomorrow" has a few lines as to what will (fictionally) happen in 2009, for "our robot masters will know how to clean this mess up and build a better world, for man and machine alike, for the boys and the girls who are slaves building spaceships at night in the fluorescent light".

Film

• Freejack (1992): Set in November 2009.
• 2009 Lost Memories (2002): Set in 2009.
• I Am Legend (2007): The events triggering the story begin on December 10, 2009.
• Cloverfield (2008): On May 22, the events of the story take place.
• Eagle Eye (2008): The surveillance cameras in the film read January 26, 2009.

Television

• Charmed ("Morality Bites," 1999) Phoebe Halliwell is executed on February 12 by burning at the stake for murdering a man with her powers.
• Macross (adapted outside Japan as the first part of Robotech): The alien Zentradi arrive at Earth on February 7 (February 9 in Robotech), triggering the devastating Space War I or First Robotech War.
• The West Wing ("The Ticket," 2005): Former President Jed Bartlet opens his presidential library in New Hampshire and chats with some of his former staffers.
• Dark Angel (2000-2002): Max Guevara and her "brothers and sisters" escape from Manticore in 2009. America is devastated by an electromagnetic pulse later in the same year.
• Family Matters: In the 1994 episode "Father of the Bride", Carl Winslow sleeps for fifteen years and wakes up in the year 2009 where main characters Steve Urkel and Laura Winslow are married with four children.
• 2007 television series The Sarah Jane Adventures is set in this time, the earliest January following "a year and a half" after Doctor Who episode "School Reunion".
• The Doctor Who episode Last of the Time Lords is set mainly in this year. Also Series 4 of the show is set in 2009 with the episode Partners In Crime, The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky and The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. The events of the Turn Left parallel universe takes place partly here too.
• Ultraman Nexus (2004-2005) is set in 2009, acting as a sequel to the 2004 film Ultraman: The Next which was set in it's production year.
• Batman Beyond (1999 - 2001): In the episode "Out of the Past," it is revealed that sometime in 2009, Batman fought Ra's al Ghul in an incident they referred to as "The Near-Apocalypse of 09." An incident that Ra's has started.

Books

• Gregory Benford, Threads
• David Brin, The Postman
• Tracy Hickman, The Immortals
• Wilson Tucker, The Year of the Quiet Sun
• David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest: the novel's subsidized time, "Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment," may correspond to 2009.

Awards

Nobel Prizes

• Chemistry - to be announced
• Economics - to be announced
• Literature - to be announced
• Peace - to be announced
• Physics - to be announced
• Physiology or Medicine - to be announced