* 1909 – Robert Peary and Matthew Henson reach the North Pole.

* 1909 – William M. Branham, American evangelist ( d. 1965 )

* 1909 – Hermann Lang, German race car driver ( d. 1987 )

* 1909 – Juliana of the Netherlands ( d. 2004 )

* 1909 – F. E. McWilliam, Irish sculptor ( d. 1992 )

* 1909 – Sylvère Maes, Belgian cyclist ( d. 1966 )

* 1909 – Lester Young, American saxophonist ( d. 1959 )

* 1909 – V. K. Gokak, Indian writer ( d. 1992 )

* 1909 – Adam von Trott zu Solz, German diplomat ( d. 1944 )

Monty Noble led Australia to victory in both 1907 – 08 and 1909.

* 1909 – Walter Van Tilburg Clark, American novelist ( d. 1971 )

* 1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, taking 59 days to travel from New York, New York to San Francisco, California.

* 1909 – Bill Voce, England cricketer ( d. 1984 )

* 1871 – John Millington Synge, Irish writer ( d. 1909 )

* 1909 – Hugo Winterhalter, American composer and bandleader ( d. 1973 )

* 1909 – Paul Callaway, American organist and conductor ( d. 1995 )

* 1909 – Bruce Matthews, Canadian army officer and businessman ( d. 1991 )

* 1909 – First automobile race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway takes place.

* 1909 – Nikolay Bogolyubov, Russian mathematician ( d. 1992 )

* 1829 – Carlo Acton, Italian composer and pianist ( d. 1909 )

* 1909 – Michael Rennie, English actor ( d. 1971 )

* 1909 – The Turkish military reverses the Ottoman countercoup of 1909 to force the overthrow of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

* 1909 – Syd Buller, English cricketer ( d. 1970 )

* 1909 – Leila Danette, American actress

Selma gives Mr. Burns his driving test to replace his old license, which expired in 1909.

Ralph Vaughan Williams produced his most famous settings of six songs, the cycle On Wenlock Edge, for string quartet, tenor and piano ( dedicated to Gervase Elwes ) in 1909, and it became very popular after Elwes recorded it with the London String Quartet and Frederick B. Kiddle in 1917.

In 1909, the citizens of Berkeley adopted a new charter, and the Town of Berkeley became the City of Berkeley.

Due to his two periods of exile in 1904 – 1909, to escape the British invasion of 1904, and from 1910 – 1912 to escape a Chinese invasion, he became well aware of the complexities of international politics and was the first Dalai Lama to become aware of the importance of foreign relations.

Munch's stay in hospital stabilized his personality, and after returning to Norway in 1909, his work became more colorful and less pessimistic.

He had two children, Graham ( born 1907 ) and Mary ( born 1909 ), who each also became illustrators.

Sorel became a supporter of reactionary Maurrassian nationalism beginning in 1909 that influenced his works.

As an alumnus, he later helped to set up the Royal College of Science Association, of which he became the first president in 1909.

His lectures at Columbia and Stanford universities were published in 1909 as Principles of Mining, which became a standard textbook.

In 1909, he became Vice-Mayor of Cologne, an industrial metropolis with a population of 635, 000 in 1914.

It was not the world's first air force, because France's embryonic army air service, which eventually became the French Air Force ( Armée de l ’ Air ), was founded in 1909.

* 1909 – U. S. President William Taft used what became known as a Saxbe fix, a mechanism to avoid the restriction of the U. S. Constitution's Ineligibility Clause, to appoint Philander C. Knox as U. S. Secretary of State

In 1909, Frederick F. Russell, a U. S. Army physician, developed an American typhoid vaccine and two years later his vaccination program became the first in which an entire army was immunized.

In 1909, he became Canada's first Deputy Minister of Labour, a civil service position.

Although he and the very-private Rogers openly became visible to the public as friends, and Washington was a frequent guest at Rogers ' New York office, his Fairhaven, Massachusetts summer home, and aboard his steam yacht Kanawha, the true depth and scope of their relationship was not publicly revealed until after Rogers ' sudden death of an stroke in May 1909.

One of them, Cavaliere Ugo Stella, an aristocrat from Milan, became chairman of the SAID in 1909.

The White City of the World's Colombian Exposition inspired the Merchant's Club of Chicago to commission Daniel Burnham to create the Plan of Chicago in 1909, which became the first modern comprehensive city plan in America.

And later, in 1909, Tórshavn became a market town with the same municipal charter as Danish market towns.

The 35 mm width with 4 perforations per frame became accepted as the international standard gauge in 1909, and has remained by far the dominant film gauge for image origination and projection despite challenges from smaller and larger gauges, and from novel formats, because its size allowed for a relatively good tradeoff between the cost of the film stock and the quality of the images captured.

It was Edison's format, however, that became first the dominant standard and then the " official " standard of the newly formed Motion Picture Patents Company, a trust established by Edison, which agreed in 1909 to what would become the standard: 35 mm gauge, with Edison perforations and a 1. 3 aspect ratio.

His box kite designs were widely adopted and became the prevalent type of aircraft until 1909.

He became battalion adjutant in 1909 and then engineer officer at Fort Leavenworth in 1910.

During these years Holst also became interested in Hindu mysticism and spirituality, and this interest led to the composition of several works set to translations of Sanskrit texts, including: Sita ( 1899 – 1906 ), a three-act opera based on an episode in the Ramayana ; Sāvitri ( 1908 ), a chamber opera based on a tale from the Mahabharata ; 4 groups of Hymns from the Rig Veda ( 1908 – 14 ); and two texts originally by Kalidasa: Two Eastern Pictures ( 1909 – 10 ) and The Cloud Messenger ( 1913 ).

The fair was originally conceived in 1955 to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, but it soon became clear that that date was too ambitious.

Sardar Mohammed Daoud Khan or Daud Khan ( July 18, 1909 – April 28, 1978 ) was Prime Minister of Afghanistan from 1953 to 1963, and later became the President of Afghanistan.