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.

Predicted and scheduled events

January

• January — Republic of Ireland bans the use of incandescent light bulbs.
• January 1 — Czech Republic takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from France.
• 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^[1] throughout the year.
• Florida joins the Powerball lottery game.
• January 1 — Slovakia will adopt the Euro as the nation's official currency.
• 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 — Swedish pharmacy monopoly will end.
• January 1 — Norway will legalize same-sex marriage, and Hungary will recognize registered partnerships.
• January 3 — 111th United States Congress begins. A new delegate will be added for the Northern Mariana Islands.
• January 15 — International Year of Astronomy 2009 Opening Ceremony at UNESCO HQ, Paris, France.^[2]
• January 20 — The 44th President of the United States will be inaugurated at 12:00 noon EST (17:00 UTC).
• January 26 — Annular solar eclipse.
• January 30 — February 15 — Alpine World Ski Championships 2009 in Val d'Isère, France.

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.
• February 1 — Super Bowl XLIII will be held in Tampa, Florida.
• February 3 - "The Day the Music Died" a movie made about the event with the same name will be released exactly 50 years after the crash.
• February 11 - Inaugural events for the two-year celebration of the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln in Hodgenville, Kentucky.
• 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 17 — Analog television broadcasts will end in the United States, as the Federal Communications Commission will require all stations to send their signals digitally.
• February 19-March 1 — 2009 Winter Universiade in Harbin, China.
• February 22 - The 81st Academy Awards will be held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California.
• NASA Kepler Mission, a space photometer to search for extrasolar planets

March

• March 3 - The date of the next Square root day
• March 5 - The 2nd World Baseball Classic will begin
• March 12 - STS-127, Space Shuttle Endeavour will deliver and install the final component of the Japanese Experiment Module
• The 2009 NCAA Men's basketball Tournament Final Four will be held at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan
• NASA Dawn robotic spacecraft: Mars flyby, gravity assist en route to Vesta and Ceres

April

• April 2 — 100 Hours of Astronomy begins. This is a cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy. ^[3]
• April 9 - Birkat HaHammah. Jewish prayer recited once every twenty-eight years on the day the sun returns to the position that it had when the Universe was first created.
• 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 27— Champions League Final to be held in Stadio Olimpico, Rome.
• May — General Elections will be held in India.
• May 2-May 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. ^[4]
• May 16 — The Final of the 54th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Moscow ,Russia.
• May 25 — Conjunction between Jupiter and Neptune, Jupiter 24' south. First conjunction of triple conjunction Jupiter/Neptune

June

• June 6–June 13 - World Air Games will be held in Torino, Italy.^[5]
• June 11 — Elections to the European Parliament. In the UK, they will be held on June 11. This is also a possible date for the next UK general election.
• June 30 — Opening of the tallest man-made structure, the Burj Dubai in Dubai, UAE.

July

• July 1 - Sweden takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Czech Republic.
• July 7 - 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, St. Louis, Busch Stadium^[6]
• July 13 — Conjunction between Jupiter and Neptune, Jupiter 37' south. Second conjunction of triple conjunction Jupiter/Neptune.
• July 15–July 26 — Summer Universiade in Belgrade, Serbia.
• July 16 - Launch date of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-128.^[7]
• July 22 — Total solar eclipse (Longest lasting total eclipse of the 21st century).

August

• The Dallas Cowboys New Stadium will open.^{citation needed}

September

• 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.
• September - The Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building, will be completed.
• September - NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover scheduled launch to Mars; landing is expected in July-September 2010.

October

• 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 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 2 - The Chenab Bridge, the world's tallest bridge, will be completed in India.
• December 11 - Presidential election in Chile.
• December 20 - Conjunction between Jupiter and Neptune, Jupiter 34' south. Third conjunction of triple conjunction Jupiter/Neptune.
• December 31 - Deadline for implementation of the controversial U.S. legislation Real ID act.

Unknown dates

• 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. ^[8].
• 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.
• 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.
• Canada's ISAF commitment in Afghanistan 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.
• Citi Field will replace Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens, New York, NY; it will be built on Shea Stadium's current parking lot.
• Comedian and talk show host Jay Leno will retire after seventeen years of hosting the Tonight Show. He is to be succeeded by Late Night host Conan O'Brien. Jimmy Fallon will replace O'Brien.
• 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. This will be followed by the Western Australian state elections.
• 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
• 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)
• 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.

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 to.

Books

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

References