2009 in the United States
Events from the year 2009 in the United States.
The inauguration of Barack Obama as the president, occurred on January 20. The nation, still recovering from the Great Recession, received various economic stimuli through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and similar legislation, which most notably gave Americans tax credits. Though the recession officially ended in June of this year, it did not come without this year's share of bankruptcies and dissolutions, most notably Circuit City and the Chicago Cubs.
The year also saw the roots of various movements which would come to define the next ten years, including the Tea Party movement, and the beginning of the legalization of same-sex marriage. The Democratic Party gained a filibuster-proof supermajority of seats within the Senate, enabling the passage of the Affordable Care Act the following year. The year's second G20 summit was also held in the city of Pittsburgh. Culturally, the nation was wracked by the death of Michael Jackson, which triggered an immense response around the world and caused some websites to crash due to an overflow of traffic.
Incumbents
Federal government
- President:
- Vice President:
- Chief Justice: John Roberts
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nancy Pelosi
- Senate Majority Leader: Harry Reid
- Congress: 110th, 111th
State governments
Governors
Lieutenant governors
Events
January
- January - The worst month of the Great Recession sees nearly 800,000 jobs lost; the unemployment rate rises to 7.8%, the highest since June 1992.
- January 1 - The BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant, an unarmed man, results in protests and several hours of violence in Oakland, California.
- January 6
- * The 111th Congress convenes with Democrats increasing their majority to 256 seats in the House, and to 59 seats in the Senate.
- * Marianas Trench, Rose Atoll and Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is established.
- January 9 - A Labor Department report shows that the U.S. economy lost nearly 2 million jobs in the last four months of 2008.
- January 15 - US Airways Flight 1549 loses power in both engines shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport, forcing the pilot to ditch the aircraft in the Hudson River. All 155 passengers and crew are rescued with no casualties, and the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, is hailed as a hero.
- January 16 - Circuit City, the number two electronics retailer in the U.S., announces the closing of all 567 of its U.S. stores and the termination of 34,000 jobs.
- January 20 - Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, and Joe Biden is sworn in as the 47th vice president.
- January 21 - Zhu Haiyang decapitates Yang Xin at Virginia Tech in the first campus murder since the Virginia Tech shooting.
- January 22 - President Obama signs executive orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within one year and to prohibit torture in terrorism interrogations.
- January 26 - Timothy Geithner is sworn in as the new Secretary of Treasury, succeeding Henry Paulson.
- January 29 - Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich becomes the first state governor to be impeached and removed from office in a quarter century, and Pat Quinn is sworn in as the 41st governor of Illinois.
February
- February 1 - The Pittsburgh Steelers win their sixth Super Bowl, defeating the Arizona Cardinals, 27–23 in Super Bowl XLIII at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. The Steelers became the first NFL team to win six Super Bowl titles.
- February 5 - Poisoner Stacey Castor, known as the Black Widow Killer, is convicted of the murder of her husband David and the attempted murder of her daughter Ashley. She is also suspected to have murdered her ex-husband Michael Wallace.
- February 10 - A privately owned U.S. satellite and a Russian military satellite collide over Siberia, scattering space debris in orbits above Earth, potentially threatening satellites in nearby orbits.
- February 12
- * To honor the 200th anniversary of the birth of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Mint launches a series of pennies that commemorate four stages in Lincoln's life.
- * Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashes in Clarence Center, New York, killing 49 passengers, including a 9/11 widow and one man who was in his house.
- February 13 - Toon Disney and Jetix relaunched as Disney XD.
- February 14 - Shaun Earl Arender pleads guilty for the murder of Hanna Mack in Navarro Mills, Texas.
- February 17
- * Peanut Corp, a peanut butter processor implicated in nine deaths and more than 600 poisonings due to salmonella, files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy just days after its CEO uses the Fifth Amendment to avoid questioning by Congress.
- * President Barack Obama signs the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to provide stimulus during the Great Recession.
- February 18 - President Obama orders the deployment of 17,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan.
- February 19 - President Obama makes Canada the site of his first international visit.
- February 22 - The 81st Academy Awards, hosted by Hugh Jackman, are held at Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire wins eight awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button leads the nominations with 13, while Heath Ledger becomes the second performer to win a posthumous acting Oscar, winning Best Supporting Actor for his role as the Joker in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. The telecast garners over 36.9 million viewers.
- February 24
- * The Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a new $278 million NASA satellite designed to precisely measure atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for global warming research, crashes near Antarctica just after launching.
- * President Obama delivers his first address to the 111th Congress, defending financial bailouts as necessary to economic recovery, and vowing economic recovery, stricter regulation of financial institutions, and health care reform. He also warns that future bailouts may be necessary.
- February 25 - James Nicholson, the manager of an unregistered hedge fund, Westgate Capital Management, is arrested and charged in federal court with defrauding hundreds of investors in a Ponzi type scheme.
March
- March 2 - Insurance giant AIG reports nearly $62 billion in losses during the fourth quarter of 2008, and the US government gives it $30 billion more in aid in a new bailout.
- March 3 - Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke says AIG took huge, irresponsible risks.
- March 7 - NASA launches Kepler Mission, a space photometer which searches for planets in the Milky Way that could be similar to Earth and habitable by humans.
- March 9
- * President Obama overturns a Bush-era policy that limited federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, while promising that human cloning will be banned.
- * Exactly 17 months after its all-time high of 14,164 on October 9, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottoms out at 6,547 during the late-2000s recession and begins to rise quickly.
- March 10 - Geneva County shootings: Michael McLendon goes on a killing rampage in Geneva County, Alabama, in which he kills his mother and six other family members. He then kills three random civilians before committing suicide inside a factory where he used to work.
- March 12 - Bernie Madoff pleads guilty to the Madoff investment scandal.
- March 13 - A report by the Federal Reserve says that U.S. families lost a record 18% of their wealth in 2008.
- March 15 - AIG announces it will pay $450 million in bonuses to top executives despite its central role in the global financial meltdown and despite receiving a $173 billion government bailout. A massive public outcry follows, with Obama calling AIG greedy and reckless.
- March 17 - The Seattle Post Intelligencer ends publication, just two weeks after the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colorado shuts down.
- March 18 - New Mexico becomes the 15th state to abolish the death penalty.
- March 21 - Four Oakland police officers are killed in a shoot out.
- March 22 - After emitting steam and volcanic ash for weeks, Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupts explosively for the first time in 20 years.
April
- April
- * The unemployment rate hits 9% for the first time since September 1983; it will not drop below 9% again until late 2011.
- April 1 - Attorney General Eric Holder dismisses the case against former senator Ted Stevens, citing prosecutorial misconduct.
- April 3
- * The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously agrees that denying same-sex couples the right to marry is unconstitutional. Iowa becomes the third state to allow same-sex marriage, and is the first state in the American midwest to allow such unions.
- * A mass shooting occurs in an immigration center in Binghamton, New York. Gunman Jiverly Anteras Wong, a naturalized citizen from Vietnam, shoots and kills 13 people, and injures four others, before committing suicide.
- April 4 - Officers Eric Kelly, Steven Mayhle and Paul Scullio are killed in a shootout by Richard Poplawski in Pittsburgh. Poplawski is sentenced to death two years later.
- April 5 - World Wrestling Entertainment holds WrestleMania 25 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, drawing a crowd of 72,744.
- April 7 - Vermont legalizes same-sex marriage after the legislature overrides a veto by the governor.
- April 8 - Somali pirates hijack the Maersk Alabama, an American freighter, then kidnap her captain.
- April 12 - Three Somali pirates are killed in a sniper operation authorized by President Obama, freeing Captain Philips and ending a multi-day standoff between the United States Navy and the pirates.
- April 18 - Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist, is sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison on charges she allegedly engaged in espionage. She is released the following month, after an appeals court reduces and suspends her sentence.
- April 24 - The World Health Organization calls the reported cases of swine flu in Mexico and the U.S. a "public health emergency of international concern".
- April 27 - Air Force One photo op controversy: An Air Force One back-up plane and an F-16 fighter jet fly at approximately over Lower Manhattan, in a photo opportunity organized by the United States Department of Defense. Citizens, who have not been informed of the event, are alarmed due to fears of a repeat of the September 11 attacks.
- April 28 - Senator Arlen Specter switches parties to become a Democrat, giving the Democrats a 59-seat majority in the Senate.