What happened on April 9 ?

193 - Septimius Severus is proclaimed Roman Emperor by the army in Illyricum (in the Balkans).

1241 - Battle of Liegnitz: Mongol forces defeats the Polish and German armies.

1413 - Henry V is crowned King of England.

1667 - First public art exhibition opens in Paris.

1682 - Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovers the mouth of the Mississippi River, claims it for France and names it Louisiana.

1770 - Capt James Cook discovers Botany Bay in Australia

1865 - American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, effectively ending the war.

1867 - Alaska purchase: Passing by a single vote, the United States Senate ratifies a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska.

1909 - The U.S. Congress passes the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act.

1913 - The Brooklyn Dodgers' Ebbets Field opens.

1916 - World War I: Battle of Verdun - German forces launch their third offensive of the battle.

1917 - World War I: Battle of Arras - The battle begins with Canadian forces executing a massive assault on Vimy Ridge.

1937 - The Kamikaze arrives at Croydon Airport in London - it is the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe.

1939 - Marian Anderson sings at the Lincoln Memorial, after having been refused the right to sing at the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall.

1940 - World War II: Germany invades Denmark and Norway.

1942 - World War II: Battle of Bataan/Bataan Death March - United States forces surrender on the Bataan Peninsula. Japanese Navy launches air raid on Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy Destroyer HMAS Vampire are sunk off the country's East Coast.

1945 - World War II: The German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer is sunk.

1945 - The United States Atomic Energy Commission formed

1947 - The Glazier-Higgins-Woodward Tornadoes kill 181 and injure 970 in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

1947 - The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial Freedom Ride of 16 black and white men traveling through the upper South in violation of Jim Crow laws begins. The riders, sponsored by CORE and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, are seeking to force southern states to enforce the United States Supreme Court's 1946 Irene Morgan decision that banned racial segregation in interstate travel.

1948 - Jorge Eliécer Gaitán's assassination provokes a violent riot in Bogotá (the Bogotazo), and a further ten years of violence in all of Colombia (La violencia).

1948 - Massacre at Deir Yassin.

1949 - The Gurkha Contingent of the Singapore Police Force is formed.

1953 - Warner Brothers premieres the first 3-D film, entitled House of Wax

1957 - The Suez Canal in Egypt is cleared and opens to shipping

1959 - Mercury program: NASA announces the selection of the United States' first seven astronauts which the news media quickly dub the "Mercury Seven".

1967 - The first Boeing 737 (a 100 series) takes its maiden flight.

1969 - The "Chicago Eight" plead not guilty on federal charges of conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

1980 - Israeli troops move into Lebanon

1986 - The government of France rules against the privatization of French automaker Renault.

1987 - Dikye Baggett becomes the first person to undergo corrective surgery for Parkinson's disease.

1989 - April 9 tragedy in Tbilisi, Georgia: An anti-Soviet demonstration was quashed by the Soviet army.

1991 - Georgia declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1992 - US Federal Court finds former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega guilty on 8 of 10 drug and racketeering charges. He is serving a 30-year prison sentence.

1992 - John Major's Conservative Party wins an unprecedented fourth general election victory in the United Kingdom.

1998 - The National Prisoner of War Museum is located in Andersonville, Georgia, on the site of an old American Civil War POW camp.

1999 - Ismail Omar Guelleh is elected president of Djibouti.

1999 - Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, President of Niger, is assassinated.

2003 - 2003 invasion of Iraq: Baghdad, Iraq falls to American forces.

2005 - HRH Charles, Prince of Wales weds Camilla Parker Bowles.