Browse Historical Events by Day: What Happened on April 9th?

William the Conqueror, King of England, dies in Rouen, France.

The University of Padua is chartered in Italy.

Batu Khan's Mongol horde inflicts a devastating defeat on the Polish and German forces at the Battle of Liegnitz.

Edward V becomes King of England upon the death of his father, Edward IV.

René-Robert Cavelier claims the Mississippi River basin for France, naming it Louisiana.

John Wesley is converted, sparking the Methodist movement.

Napoleon Bonaparte wins a brilliant victory at the Battle of Montenotte, during his Italian campaign.

Napoleon Bonaparte, after returning from Egypt, stages a coup d'état and becomes the de facto ruler of France.

General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. More

Ulysses S. Grant, still a Lieutenant General of the U.S. Army, is detained by two officers, on the one-year anniversary of General Lee’s surrender to Grant in Appomattox, Virginia, for fast driving on 14th Street while “exercising his fast gray nag”. Grant offered to pay the fine, but “expressed his doubts of their authority to arrest him and drove off.” Several days later, Grant “acknowledge the service of a warrant for fast driving and appeared before the Justice of the Peace and paid the fine.” More

African American contralto Marian Anderson, sang at the Lincoln Memorial to a crowd of 75,000 on Easter Sunday after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. because she was black. At that time Washington DC was still a segregated city.

Germany invades Denmark and Norway during World War II. The German invasion of Denmark and Norway begins. Known as Operation Weseruebung, it heralded a new stage in warfare in which cooperation of air, land, and sea forces was essential for successful offensive operations.

The largest surrender of American troops since the American Civil War's Battle of Harpers Ferry takes place as 12,000 Americans soldiers and 66,000 Filipinos surrender to the Japanese at Bataan in the Philippines. Soon afterwards, U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war were forced into the Bataan Death March. More

U.S. forces capture Baghdad, effectively toppling Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.