This article is about the year. For the film, see 2009 Lost Memories.

2009 (MMIX) will be a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar.

2009 has been designated International Year of Astronomy.^[1][2]

Predicted and scheduled events

January

• January - Republic of Ireland bans the sale of incandescent light bulbs.^[3]
• January - The U.S. Mint will follow the 50 State Quarters program by minting quarters in honor of Washington, D.C. Coins for Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands will follow every eight weeks throughout the year.^[4]
• January 1 - Czech Republic takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from France.
• January 1 - Slovakia will adopt the Euro as the nation's official currency.^[5]
• January 1 - Deadline by which goods in all member states of the European Union must be sold in metric units (this has already been completed everywhere, except in the United Kingdom). Road signs in the UK are unaffected (road signs in all other member states are already in metric units).
• January 1 - The Swedish pharmacy monopoly will end.^[6]
• January 1 - Norway will legalize same-sex marriage, and Hungary will recognize registered partnerships.^[7]
• January 1 - The European small claims procedure comes into force throughout the European Union, other than Denmark. The small claims procedure is applicable to cross-border legal claims under the Brussels regime with value up to 2,000 EUR.^[8]
• January 3 - 111th United States Congress begins. A new delegate will be added for the Northern Mariana Islands.
• January 8 - The BCS National Championship Game 2009 will be held in Miami Gardens, Florida.^[9]
• January 15 - International Year of Astronomy 2009 Opening Ceremony at UNESCO HQ, Paris, France.^[10]
• January 20 - The US elected president will be inaugurated at 12:00 noon EST (17:00 UTC), ending the Incumbent President George W. Bush's 8-year term as the 43rd President of the United States.
• January 26 - The annular solar eclipse.^[11]

February

• February 1 - The International Cospas-Sarsat Satellite System will stop monitoring for 121.5 MHz and 243 MHz (Class B) distress signals from EPIRBs and other emergency beacons.^[12]
• February 1 - The Super Bowl XLIII will take place in Tampa, Florida.^[13]
• February 2–15 - The FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2009 will take place in Val d'Isère, France.^[14]
• February 12 - National celebration of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission has scheduled a series of events in Washington, D.C.
• February 12 - Darwin Day. 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Events are already being planned at the National History Museum in London.
• February 13 - The Unix time number reaches 1234567890 seconds at 23:31:30 UTC.
• February 15 - The 2009 NBA All-Star Game will be held in Phoenix, AZ.
• February 16 - The NASA Kepler Mission, a space photometer to search for extrasolar planets, will be launched in 2009.
• February 17 - Analog television broadcasts will mostly end in the United States, as the Federal Communications Commission will require all full power stations to send their signals digitally.
• February 18–28 - The 2009 Winter Universiade will be held in Harbin, China.^[15][16]
• February 22 - The 81st Academy Awards will be held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California.^[17]
• February 27 - The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the LCROSS impactor will be launched to the moon. Part of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP).^[18]

March

• March - The NASA's Dawn spacecraft will flyby Mars for gravitational assist to en route to Vesta and Ceres.
• March 3 - Square root day.^{citation needed}
• March 5 - The 2nd World Baseball Classic will begin.^{citation needed}
• March 12 - The STS-127, Space Shuttle Endeavour will deliver and install the final component of the Japanese Experiment Module.

April

• April - The New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field will be inaugurated, replacing the current Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium.
• April 2 - The 100 Hours of Astronomy begins. This is a cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy.^[19]
• April 4–6 - The 2009 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Final Four will be held at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan.^[20]
• April 11 - Neptune will return to the same degree and minute as when it was discovered, 163 years previously, September 23, 1846.

May

• May - The UEFA Cup final will be held in Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium in Istanbul.
• May - General Elections will be held in India.
• May 2–11 - The Men's U19 World Floorball Championships take place in Helsinki, Finland.
• May 3 - Elections for President and Parliament will take place in Panama.
• May 12 - Elections will take place in British Columbia, Canada.^[21]
• May 16 - The Final of the 54th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Moscow, Russia.^[22]
• May 25 - Conjunction between Jupiter and Neptune, Jupiter 24' south. First of three conjunctions of Jupiter and Neptune.^{citation needed}
• May 27 - Champions League Final will be held in Stadio Olimpico, Rome.
• May 30 - Rededication of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Titled "Retrospective" the ceremony will recreate the program from the original May 30, 1922 ceremony.

June

• June 6–13 - The World Air Games will be held in Torino, Italy.^[23]
• June 11 - The European Parliament elections will be held in the UK. This may also be a date for the next UK general election.

July

• July 1 - Sweden takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Czech Republic.
• July 1–12 - Summer Universiade in Belgrade, Serbia.
• July 3–5 - The Global Conference on Abraham Lincoln at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford.
• July 13 - Conjunction between Jupiter and Neptune, Jupiter 37' south. Second of three conjunctions of Jupiter and Neptune.
• July 14- 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, St. Louis, Busch Stadium^[24]
• July 15–26 - Summer Universiade in Belgrade, Serbia.
• July 16 - Launch date of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-128.^[25]
• July 22 - Total solar eclipse. The longest lasting total solar eclipse of the 21st century.^[26][27]

September

• September - The Burj Dubai in Dubai, UAE will be completed. It's already the tallest man-made structure on Planet Earth.^[28][29]
• September - NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover scheduled launch to Mars; landing is expected in July-September 2010.
• September 14 - Parliamentary election in Norway.
• September 29 - NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft makes its final flyby of Mercury, decreasing velocity enough for an orbital capture on March 18, 2011.

October

• October - Presidential elections in Tunisia.
• October 2 - The host city of 2016 Summer Olympics will be announced at the 121st Session (which will also be the XIIIth Olympic Congress) of the International Olympic Committee to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• October 19 - The 40th Canadian federal election will be held.

November

• November - Singapore will host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.
• November - Presidential Elections in Romania.
• November - The retail sale of incandescent light bulbs will be banned in Australia.^[30]
• November 29 - Presidential Elections in Honduras.
• November 30 - Vancouver, Canada will open the Canada Line rapid transit line connecting Vancouver with Richmond, BC and the Vancouver International Airport.

December

• December 11 - Presidential election in Chile.
• December 20 - Conjunction between Jupiter and Neptune, Jupiter 34' south. Last of three conjunctions of Jupiter and Neptune.
• December 31 - The deadline for implementation of the controversial United States legislation REAL ID Act.^[31][32]

Unknown dates

• Miss Universe 2009 will be broadcast straight from Manila, Philippines.
• Albania and Croatia will join NATO.
• Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, is going to be the European Capital of Culture.
• The final phase of the L.A. Live project will be completed, including a 54-story Ritz-Carlton/JW Marriott hotel and the 14-screen West Coast flagship theatre multiplex operated by Regal Cinemas.
• New Zealand will stop the sales of incandescent light bulbs.
• East African Community to implement a common currency called the East African shilling.
• A U.S. aircraft carrier named the USS George H. W. Bush will be commissioned.
• The Completion of the Sound Transit System Link Light Rail in Seattle.
• The United Kingdom will continue a 5-year process to cease analog television broadcasts region-by-region, with Granada, HTV Wales and Westcountry Television. ^[33].
• Boeing 747-8 will achieve entry into service (EIS).
• Opening of Tseung Kwan O South Line, MTR, Hong Kong.
• Winter Universiade in Harbin, People's Republic of China.
• The Dallas Cowboys New Stadium will be inaugurated.
• Completion of the Metro Gold Line (LACMTA) Expansion and the Expo Line in Los Angeles, California.
• Completion of the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in New Mexico, U.S.A.
• Completion of the Three Gorges Dam in China.
• First flight of the SpaceX Dragon commercial manned orbital spacecraft.
• Next award of the Sylvester Medal.
• Possible start of unmanned test flights of the Ares I rocket and the new Crew Exploration Vehicle.
• Possible launch of the KEO satellite time capsule. If it is not launched in 2009, it will be launched in 2010.
• The Compact of Free Association between the United States and Palau expires.
• Possible start of construction for a fixed-guideway mass transit system for Honolulu.
• Tesla Motors will mass produce the White Star, its second electric car.
• The United Kingdom will establish a Supreme Court, comprising the twelve former Law Lords.
• The Greenville Bridge will open to traffic.
• The ship Genesis of the Seas should be in service.
• The University of Greenland will move into a new research complex called llimmarfik.
• Microsoft's next client operating system, known as Windows 7 will be released to manufacturing in the second half of 2009.
• Western Australia will vote on the controversial topic of daylight saving time.
• World Trade Center Tower 5 will have its groundbreaking ceremony in New York City.
• RFSA Phobos-Grunt, sample return from Phobos
• Intel plans to release as many as five new microprocessor variants of the Nehalem microarchitecture throughout the year. The Beckton variant may have as many as eight cores.

Major religious holidays

• January 7 - Christmas in most Eastern Orthodox Churches of Christianity.
• April 12 - Easter
• April 19 - Easter for many Eastern Christians
• August 6 - Raksha Bandhan
• November 27 - Eid al-Adha
• December 25 - Christmas in Western Christianity and some Eastern Orthodox Churches.

2009 in fiction

Computer and video games

Set in 2009:

• Shattered Union (2005): U.S. President David Jefferson Adams is elected in a sham election, and becomes the most unpopular president in U.S. history.
• Abuse (1996)
• Dino Crisis (1999)^{citation needed}
• Fahrenheit (also known as Indigo Prophecy)
• Incoming (1998)
• Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (2005): Set in 2009 or 2010.
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001), the Plant chapter occurs on April 29 and April 30, causing devastation to New York City from its coast, when Arsenal Gear crash lands into Federal Hall.
• Splinter Cell Double Agent (2006)
• Mega Man II and Mega Man in Dr. Wily's Revenge
• Army of Two-portion of game set in 2009
• Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (2007), takes place between April 2009 and March 2010

Music

• Tokyo Police Club's song "Citizens of Tomorrow" has a few lines as to what will (fictionally) happen in 2009, for "our robot masters will know how to clean this mess up and build a better world, for man and machine alike, for the boys and the girls who are slaves building spaceships at night in the fluorescent light".

Film

• Freejack (1992): Set in 2009.

• 2009 Lost Memories (2002): Set in 2009.

• I Am Legend (2007): The events triggering the story begin in December 2009.

• Cloverfield (2008): On May 22nd, the events of the story take place.

• Wall-E (2008): Wall-E's are created.

Television

• Charmed ("Morality Bites," 1999) Phoebe Halliwell is executed on February 12 by burning at the stake for murdering a man with her powers.
• Macross (adapted outside Japan as the first part of Robotech): The alien Zentradi arrive at Earth on February 7 (February 9 in Robotech), triggering the devastating Space War I or First Robotech War.
• The West Wing ("The Ticket," 2005): Former President Jed Bartlet opens his presidential library in New Hampshire and chats with some of his former staffers.
• Dark Angel (2000-2002): Max Guevara and her "brothers and sisters" escape from Manticore in 2009. America is devastated by an electromagnetic pulse later in the same year.
• Family Matters: In a 1994 episode, Carl Winslow sleeps for 15 years and wakes up in the year 2009 where main characters Steve Urkel and Laura Winslow are married with four children.
• Noir (2001)
• 2007 television series The Sarah Jane Adventures is set in this time, the earliest January following "a year and a half" after Doctor Who episode "School Reunion".
• The Doctor Who episode "Last of the Time Lords" is set mainly in this year. Also Series 4 of the show is set in 2009 with the episode "Partners In Crime", "The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky" and "The Stolen Earth/Jorney's End". The events of the "Turn Left" parallel universe takes place partly here too.

Books

• Gregory Benford, Threads
• David Brin, The Postman
• Tracy Hickman, The Immortals
• Wilson Tucker, The Year of the Quiet Sun
• Stephenie Meyer, Midnight Sun

References