Events of 1809

January–March

Jan. 16: Battle of Corunna.

February 11: Fulton patents steamboat.

• January 5 – The Treaty of the Dardanelles between Britain and the Ottoman Empire is concluded.

• January 10 – French Marshal Jean Lannes begins the Siege of Zaragoza.

• January 16 – Peninsular War – Battle of Corunna: The French defeat the British.

• February 3 – The Illinois Territory is created.

• February 8 – Franz I of Austria declares war on France.

• February 11 – Robert Fulton patents the steamboat.

• February 17 – Miami University (Ohio) is established on the township of land required to be set aside for it under the conditions of the Miami Purchase in 1794.

• February 20 – A decision by the Supreme Court of the United States states that the power of the federal government is greater than any individual state.

• February 20 – The Siege of Zaragoza grinds to a halt as Jose Palafox surrenders. Over 60,000 had been killed on both sides in 41 days of street fighting.

• February 25 – Battle of Valls: Spanish forces are defeated in Catalonia by Marshal Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr.

• March 1 – Embargo Act repealed, Non-Intercourse Act replaces it.

• March 4 – James Madison succeeds Thomas Jefferson as the President of the United States.

• March 13 – A military coup ousts Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden; he is confined in the Gripsholm Castle.

• March 29 – At the Diet of Porvoo, Finland's four Estates pledge allegiance to Alexander I of Russia, commencing the secession of the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden.

• March 29 – King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden abdicates after a coup d'état and is later exiled.

• March 29 – First Battle of Porto: 18,000 Portuguese soldiers are drowned in a rout after defeat by the French under Marshal Soult and the Battle of Medellín results in massive Spanish casualties in Extremadura, when Marshal Victor's cavalry routs their army.

April–June

• April 9 – Tiroleans rise under the command of Andreas Hofer against French and Bavarian occupation.

• April 14 – Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria: Napoleon I defeats Austria.

• April 18 – The 2,000 Guineas Stakes horse race has its first run in England.

• April 19 – Battle of Raszyn: The armies of Austria are defeated by the Duchy of Warsaw as a part of the struggles of the Fifth Coalition (1809).

• April 22 – Battle of Eckmühl: French troops under Napoleon I and Marshal Davout defeat the Austrians under Archduke Charles.

• May 5 – Mary Kies is the first American woman to be awarded a patent.

• May 5 – The Swiss canton of Aargau denies Jews citizenship.

• May 17 – Napoleon I of France orders the annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire. When he announces that the Pope's secular power has ended, the Pope excommunicates him.

• May 21 – Battle of Aspern-Essling: Austrian troops under Archduke Karl beat the French under Napoleon in a hard fought battle.

• May 24 – Dartmoor Prison opens, the first to house French prisoners of war.

• June 6 – Sweden promulgates a new Instrument of Government, which restores political power to the Riksdag of the Estates after authoritarian rule since 1772.

• June 7 – Shoja Shah of Afghanistan signs a treaty with the British. Only weeks later, he is succeeded by Mahmud Shah.

July–September

• July 5–6 – Battle of Wagram: Napoleon defeats the Austrians.

• July 6 – French troops arrest Pope Pius VII and take him to Liguria.

• July 10 – French Marshal Marmont engages in the inconclusive Battle of Znaim against the Austrians.

• July 16 – The city of La Paz (current Bolivia) declares its independence from the Spanish Crown and forms the Junta Tuitiva, the first independent government in Spanish America, led by Pedro Domingo Murillo.

• July 28 – Battle of Talavera: Sir Arthur Wellesley's British, Portuguese and Spanish army defeats a French force.

• July 30 – A British invasion army lands in Walcheren.

• August 8 – 70 disciples of Gaon of Vilnius arrive in Palestine.

• August 10 – Ecuador declares independence from Spain.

• August 11 – Severe earthquakes strike the Azores and sinks the village of São Miguel.

• August 11 – Battle of Almonacid de Toledo: A poorly led Spanish army is defeated by King Joseph Bonaparte's French army.

• September 17 – The Peace of Hamina is signed between Russia and Sweden in the Finnish War. The territory to become the Grand Duchy of Finland is ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Fredrikshamn.

• September 18 – A new theatre to hold the Royal Opera House opens in London to replace the first, burnt down in a fire in 1808. The price increases lead to the Old Price Riots which last for 64 days.

October–December

• October 11 – Along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances at an inn called Grinder's Stand.

• October 14 – The Treaty of Schoenbrunn cedes the Illyrian provinces to France.

• November 19 – Battle of Ocana: A Spanish army is ridden down and 20,000 are killed by French forces.

• November 25 – Benjamin Bathurst, a British diplomat, mysteriously disappears (possibly murdered) in Perleberg.

• December 26 – A British invasion force leaves Vlissingen.

• December 30 – Wearing masks at balls is forbidden in Boston, Massachusetts.

Undated

• The USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) is recommissioned as the flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron.

• Louis Poinsot describes the two remaining Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra.

• Jean-Baptiste Lamarck publishes Philosophie Zoologique, outlining the concept of evolution.

• Nicolas Appert develops a method to preserve food by means of canning.

• Prince Klemens von Metternich becomes Austrian foreign minister.

• British recruits to the British East India Company and subsequently to the Indian Civil Service are required to learn at least one Indian language fluently.

Ongoing events

• Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815) – Peninsular War/Finnish War/Fifth Coalition

• Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812)

Births

January–June

• Unrecorded – Samuel Ajayi Crowther, 1st Black Anglican Bishop, pioneer linguist (d. 1891)

• January 1 – Cao Bá Quát, Vietnamese poet (d. 1855)

• January 4 – Louis Braille, French teacher, inventor of braille (d. 1852)

• January 15 – Cornelia Connelly, American founder of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus (d. 1879)

• January 15 – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French anarchist (d. 1864)

• January 19 – Edgar Allan Poe, American writer and poet (d. 1849)

• February 3 – Felix Mendelssohn, German composer (d. 1847)

• February 12

• *Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (d. 1865)

• *Charles Darwin, British naturalist (d. 1882)

• February 15 – Cyrus McCormick, American inventor (d. 1884)

• February 23 – William Sprague, American minister and politician from Michigan (d. 1868)

• March 24 – Joseph Liouville, French mathematician (d. 1882)

• March 27 – Georges Haussmann, French civic planner

• March 31 – Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer (d. 1852)

• April 15 – Hermann Gunter Grassmann, Prussian mathematician (d. 1877)

• June 4

• *Columbus Delano, American statesman (d. 1896)

• *John Henry Pratt, English clergyman and mathematician (d. 1871)

• June 8 – Richard Wigginton Thompson, American politician (d. 1900)

• June 20 – Isaak August Dorner, German theologian (d. 1884)

July–December

• August 6 – Alfred Lord Tennyson, British poet (d. 1892)

• August 8 – Heinrich Abeken, German theologian (d. 1872)

• August 27 – Hannibal Hamlin, American politician (d. 1891)

• August 29 – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., American physician and writer (d. 1894)

• October 22 – Volney E. Howard, American politician (d. 1889)

• September 27 – Raphael Semmes, Officer in the USN and the CSN (d. 1877)

• November 27 – Fanny Kemble, British-born American actress and writer (d. 1893)

• December 24 – Kit Carson, American frontiersman (d. 1868)

• December 29 – William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1898)

Deaths

January–June

• January 16 – John Moore, British general (killed in battle) (b. 1761)

• February 25 – John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore (Lord Dunmore)

• March 7 – Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Austrian composer (b. 1736)

• March 11 – Hannah Cowley, English dramatist and poet (b. 1743)

• March 25 – Anna Seward, English writer (b. 1747)

• March 27 – Joseph-Marie Vien, French painter (b. 1716)

• May 13 – Beilby Porteus, English bishop and abolitionist (b. 1731)

• May 17 – Leopold Auenbrugger, Austrian physician (b. 1722)

• May 31

• *Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (b. 1732)

• *Jean Lannes, French marshal (mortally wounded in battle (b. 1769)

• June 4 – Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard, Danish painter (b. 1743)

• June 8 – Thomas Paine, American revolutionary writer (b. 1737)

July–December

• July 6 – Antoine Charles Louis Lasalle, French cavalry general (killed in battle) (b. 1775)

• August 8 – Ueda Akinari, Japanese author and scholar (b. 1734)

• August 18 – Matthew Boulton, English manufacturer and engineer (b. 1728)

• October 8 – James Elphinston, Scottish philologist (b. 1721)

• October 11 – Meriwether Lewis, American explorer (suicide) (b. 1774)

• October 30 – William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1738)

• November 9 – Paul Sandby, English cartographer and painter (b. 1725)