This Day In History : September 9

1969 Canada

The Official Languages Act makes French equal to English throughout the Federal government of Canada

The Official Languages Act, which made French equal to English throughout the Federal government of Canada, was enacted on September 9, 1969. This legislation aimed to promote bilingualism and ensure that both English and French were used equally in federal institutions across the country.

Also on This Day in History September 9

Discover what happened on September 9 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries,
famous births and notable deaths.

Births on This Day, September 9
  • 1737 Luigi Galvani

    talian physician and physicist studied the structure of organs and the physiology of tissues who is best known for his investigation of the nature and effects of what he conceived to be electricity in animal tissue.

  • 1853 Pierre Marie

    French neurologist who made fundamental contributions to endocrinology.

  • 1910 Bjorn Kjellstrom

    Swedish co-inventor of the Silva compass designed with a compass capsule filled with a motion-damping fluid, a rotating compass dial, and a transparent protractor baseplate.

  • 1823 Joseph Leidy

    American zoologist who made significant contributions in a remarkably wide range of earth and natural science disciplines, including comparative anatomy, parasitology, and paleontology.

  • 1922 Hans Georg Dehmelt

    Hans Georg Dehmelt was a German and American physicist, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989, for co-developing the ion trap technique with Wolfgang Paul, for which they shared one-half of the prize.

Deaths on This Day, September 9
  • 2003 Edward Teller

    Hungarian-American nuclear physicist who participated in the production of the first atomic bomb (1945) and who led the development of the world's first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb.

  • 2003 Marthe Vogt

    German-British pharmacologist who left Nazi Germany for Britain and became a leading authority on neurotransmitters in the brain.

  • 1985 Paul J. Flory

    American physical chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1974 for his investigations of synthetic and natural macromolecules.

  • 1901 Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper

    German botanist whose Pflanzen Geography(1898) was one of the first and finest mapping of the floral regions of the continents.

  • 2000 Herbert Friedman

    Herbert Friedman was an American physicist and astronomer who did research in X-ray astronomy. During his career Friedman published hundreds of scientific papers.

1915

Association of Negro Life & History founded in the US

The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) was founded in the United States on September 9, 1915, by Dr. Carter G. Woodson and Jesse E. Moorland. The organization aimed to promote, research, preserve, and disseminate information about Black history and culture.
1991

Tajikistan Declares its Independence from the Soviet Union

Tajikistan declared its independence from the Soviet Union on September 9, 1991. This marked a significant moment in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as Tajikistan became a sovereign nation after decades under Soviet rule.
1965

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development established

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was established on September 9, 1965. It was created to address urban renewal, public housing, and community development issues across the United States.
1791

Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States is named after President George Washington

Washington, D.C., named after President George Washington, was established on September 9, 1791. The city was chosen as the capital of the United States to honor Washington's leadership during the American Revolution. It became the official capital in 1800 and remains the center of the U.S. government, housing key institutions like the White House and Congress.
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