1809 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 16 - Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of Corunna.
• February 3 - Illinois Territory was created.
• February 11 - Robert Fulton patents the steamboat.
• February 20 - A decision by the Supreme Court of the United States states that the power of the federal government is greater than any individual state.
• March 4 - James Madison succeeds Thomas Jefferson as the President of the United States.
• March 29 - At the Diet of Porvoo, Finland's four Estates pledge allegiance to Alexander I of Russia, commencing the secession of the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden. King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden abdicated after a coup d'état.
• April 9 - Tyroleans rise against French and Bavarian occupation - they include militia lead by Andreas Hofer.
• April 19 - Battle of Raszyn between armies of Austria (attackers) and Duchy of Warsaw (defenders) as a part of struggles of the Fifth Coalition (1809). Austrian army was defeated.
• May - Napoleon captures Vienna, is excommunicated, imprisons pope Pius VII.
• May 5 - Mary Kies is the first woman to be awarded a patent.
• May 5 - The Swiss canton of Aargau denies Jews citizenship.
• May 17 - Napoleon I of France orders the annexation of the Papal States to the French empire.
• June 6 - Sweden promulgates a new Instrument of Government, which restores political power to the Riksdag of the Estates after authoritarian rule since 1772.
• June 7 - Shoja Shah of Afghanistan signs a treaty with the British. Only weeks later, he is succeeded by Mahmud Shah.
• September 17 - Peace between Russia and Sweden in the Finnish War. The territory to become the Grand Duchy of Finland is ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Fredrikshamn.
• October 11 - Along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances at an inn called Grinder's Stand.

• USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) is recommissioned as flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron.
• Louis Poinsot describes the two remaining Kepler-Poinsot solids.
• Lamarck publishes Philosophie Zoologique, outlining the concept of evolution.
• First running of the Two Thousand Guineas Stakes horse race in England.
• Miami University (Ohio) established by congressional order by George Washington.

Ongoing events

• Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)-Peninsular War/Finnish War/Fifth Coalition

Births

• January 4 - Louis Braille, French teacher, developed writing system for the blind (d. 1852).
• January 15 - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French anarchist (d. 1864)
• January 19 - Edgar Allan Poe, American writer (d. 1849)
• February 3 - Felix Mendelssohn, German composer (d. 1847)
• February 12
  • Abraham Lincoln, US president (d. 1865)
  • Charles Darwin, British naturalist (d. 1882)
• February 15 - Cyrus McCormick, American inventor (d. 1884)
• March 31 - Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer (d. 1852)
• April 15 - Hermann Gunter Grassmann, Prussian mathematician (d. 1877)
• June 4 - Columbus Delano, American statesman (d. 1896)
• June 8 - Richard Wigginton Thompson, American politician (d. 1900)
• August 6 - Alfred Lord Tennyson, British poet (d. 1892)
• August 8 - Heinrich Abeken, German theologian (d. 1872)
• August 27 - Hannibal Hamlin, American politician (d. 1891)
• August 29 - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., American physician and writer (d. 1894)
• October 22 - Volney E. Howard, American politician (d. 1889)
• December 24 - Kit Carson, American frontiersman (d. 1868)
• December 29 - William Ewart Gladstone, British politician (d. 1898)

Deaths

• March 7 - Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Austrian composer (b. 1736)
• March 25 - Anna Seward, English writer (b. 1747)
• March 27 - Joseph-Marie Vien, French painter (b. 1716)
• May 13 - Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London and abolitionist (b. 1731)
• May 31 - Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (b. 1732)
• June 4 - Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard, Danish painter (b. 1743)
• June 8 - Thomas Paine, American revolutionary writer (b. 1737)
• August 18 - Matthew Boulton, English industrialist and member of the Lunar Society
• October 11 - Meriwether Lewis, American explorer (suicide) (b. 1774)