On This Day - What happened 9 January

A destructive earthquake occurred two days before the mainshock at 21:00 local time, centered in the Val di Noto. It had an estimated magnitude of 6.2 and a maximum perceived intensity of VIII–XI on the Mercalli intensity scale. Intensities of VIII or higher have been estimated for Augusta, Avola Vecchia, Floridia, Melilli, Noto Antica, Catania, Francofonte, Lentini, Scicli, Sortino, and Vizzini. Augusta lies well outside the main zone of severe shaking; its extensive damage is probably due to its construction on unconsolidated sediments. From the shape and location of the area of maximum damage, this earthquake is thought to have been caused by movement on the Avola fault. Some buildings collapsed in Catania, Vizzini, and Sortini. There were an estimated 200 deaths in both Augusta and Noto.

Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California, in a house that was built by his father.

Hirohito narrowly escaped assassination by a hand grenade thrown by a Korean independence activist, Lee Bong-chang, in Tokyo on 9 January 1932, in the Sakuradamon Incident.

Heading toward Havana, he greeted cheering crowds at every town, giving press conferences and interviews. Castro reached Havana on 9 January 1959.

The crew of Apollo 11 was officially announced on January 9, 1969, as Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin, with Lovell, Anders, and Fred Haise as the backup crew.

On 9 January 1982, Kate Elizabeth Middleton, now named Catherine, was born at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading into an upper-middle-class family. She is the eldest of three children, she has a younger sister, Pippa, and a younger brother, James, born to Michael Middleton and his wife Carole. Her father's family has ties to British aristocracy and benefited financially from trust funds, which they established over 100 years ago.

On 9 January 1992, the Bosnian Serbs proclaimed the "Republic of the Serbian People in Bosnia-Herzegovina" (SR BiH, later Republika Srpska), but did not officially declare independence.

The rate plunged to over 11,000 rupiah to 1 U.S. dollar on 9 January 1998, with spot rates over 14,000 during 23–26 January and trading again over 14,000 for about six weeks during June–July 1998.

During his keynote speech at the Macworld Expo on January 9, 2007, Jobs announced that Apple Computer, Inc. would thereafter be known as "Apple Inc.", because the company had shifted its emphasis from computers to consumer electronics.

Around the time of Middelton's 25th birthday in January 2007, when the attention on Middleton and Prince William increased, prompting warnings from the Prince of Wales, Prince William, and Middleton's lawyers, who threatened legal action. Two newspaper groups, News International, which publishes The Times and The Sun, and the Guardian Media Group, publishers of The Guardian, decided to refrain from publishing paparazzi photographs of her.

The operating system was unveiled with the iPhone at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 9, 2007, and released in June of that year. At the time of its unveiling in January, Steve Jobs claimed: "iPhone runs OS X" and runs "desktop-class applications", but at the time of the iPhone's release, the operating system was renamed "iPhone OS". Initially, third-party native applications were not supported. Jobs' reasoning was that developers could build web applications through the Safari web browser that "would behave like native apps on the iPhone".

Amazon acquires Lovefilm, a DVD rental service known as the Netflix of Europe.

On 9 January 2012, a large rally was held by the Korean People's Army in front of the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to honor Kim Jong-un and to demonstrate loyalty.

The 2011 FIFA Ballon d'Or Gala was the second year for FIFA's awards for the top football players and coaches of the year. The awards were given out in Zürich on 9 January 2012, with Lionel Messi claiming the title of world player of the year for the third time in a row.

On January 9, 2019, Bezos and his wife MacKenzie announced on Twitter their intent to divorce after a "long period" of separation.

The first reported death due to 2019-nCoV infection was a 61-year-old man on 9 January 2020 who was first admitted to a Wuhan hospital on 27 December 2019.

On 9 January 2021, Philip and the Queen were vaccinated against COVID-19 by a household doctor at Windsor Castle.