1909
year
1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar, the 1909th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 909th year of the 2nd millennium, the 9th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1900s decade. As of the start of 1909, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
British supercentenarian Ethel Caterham is the last surviving person who was born in 1909.
Events
January–February
January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.
January 9 – The British Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, led by Ernest Shackleton, arrives at the farthest south reached by any prior expedition, at 88°23' S, prior to turning back due to diminishing supplies.
January 11 – The International Joint Commission on US-Canada boundary waters is established.
January 16 – Members of the Nimrod Expedition claim to have found the magnetic South Pole (but the location recorded may be incorrect).
January 24 – The White Star Line RMS Republic sinks the day after a collision with SS Florida off Nantucket. Almost all of the 1,500 passengers are rescued.
January 28 – The last United States troops leave Cuba, after being there since the Spanish–American War of 1898.
“1909” enters the record as year. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what year can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1909” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, year provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2057. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1923 and 1898.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1909”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1909 primary sources, 1909 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1909”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1909” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.