January 9 – A Labor Department report shows that the US economy lost nearly 2 million jobs in the last four months of 2008.[4]
January 15 – US Airways Flight 1549 loses power in both engines shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia, forcing the pilot to ditch the aircraft in the Hudson River. All 155 passengers and crew are rescued with no injuries, and the pilot is hailed as a hero.[5]
January 16 –Circuit City, the number two electronics retailer in the U.S., announces the closing of all 567 of its U.S. stores and the termination of 34,000 jobs.[6][7]
January 22 – President Obama signs executive orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within one year and to prohibit torture in terrorism interrogations.[9]
February 10 - A privately owned American satellite and a Russian military satellite collide over Siberia, scattering space debris in orbits 300 to 800 miles above Earth, potentially threatening satellites in nearby orbits.[12]
February 12 - To honor the 200th anniversary of the birth of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Mint launches a series of pennies that commemorate four stages in Lincoln's life.[13]
February 18 - President Obama orders the deployment of 17,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan.[16]
February 19 - President Obama makes Canada the site of his first international visit, restoring a tradition that had been altered by President George W. Bush.[17]
February 24 - The Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a new $278 million NASA satellite designed to precisely measure carbon dioxide levels for global warming research, crashes near Antarctia just after launching.[18]
February 24 - President Obama addresses Congress defending the bailouts as necessary to economic recovery, and vowing economic recovery, stricter regulation of financial institutions, and health care reform. He also warns that future bailouts may be necessary.[19][20]
February 25 - James Nicholson, the manager of an unregistered hedge fund, Westgate Capital Management, is arrested and charged in federal court with defrauding hundreds of investors in a Ponzi type scheme.[21]
March
Kepler space telescope launch
March 2 - Failing insurance giant AIG reports nearly $62 billion in losses during the 2008 fourth quarter of 2008, and the US government gives it $30 billion more in aid in a new bailout.
March 9 - President Obama overturns a Bush-era policy that limited federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, while promising that human cloning will be banned.[25]
March 9 - Exactly 17 months after its all time high of 14,164 on October 9, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottoms out at 6,547 during the Late-2000s recession and begins to rise quickly.
March 13 - A report by the Federal Reserve says that U.S. families lost a record 18% of their wealth in 2008.[26]
March 15 - AIG announces it will pay $450 million in bonuses to top executives despite its central role in the global financial meltdown and despite receiving a $173 billion government bailout. A massive public outcry follows, with Obama calling AIG greedy and reckless.[27][28]
March 17 - The Seattle Post Intelligencer ends publication, just two weeks after the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colorado shuts down.[29]
March 18 - New Mexico becomes the 15th state to abolish the death penalty.[30]
March 22 - After emitting steam and volcanic ash for weeks, Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupts explosively for the first time in 20 years.[32]
April
Iowa and Vermont legalize same-sex marriage in April, stirring a nationwide debate. One month later, same-sex marriage in Maine is legalized, but the action is repealed by voters in November.[33]
April 1 - Attorney General Eric Holder dismisses the case against former senator Ted Stevens, due to prosecutorial misconduct.
April 3 - The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously agrees that denying same-sex couples the right to marry is unconstitutional. Iowa becomes the third state to allow same-sex marriage, and is the first state in the American midwest to allow such unions.[34][35]
April 18 - Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-Americanjournalist, is sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison on charges she allegedly engaged in espionage.[37] She is released the following month, after an appeals court reduces and suspends her sentence.
May 11 - Defense Secretary Robert Gates removes the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, replacing him with Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. Gates states a new approach is needed in Afghanistan. McKiernan is the first general to be dismissed from a combat command since Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.[43]
May 14 - Federal transportation officials reveal that low pay leading to sleep deprivation, and failure to pass flight certification tests were factors leading to the crash of Continental flight 3407 near Buffalo that killed 50 people.[47]
May 19 - President Obama announces vehicle emissions and mileage requirements. Under the new federal rules, vehicles will use 30 percent less fuel and emit one third less carbon dioxide by 2016. The changes will add $1300 to the cost of each new vehicle.[48]
May 21 The Senate passes a bill to impose new regulations on the credit card industry, curbing some fees and interest hikes and requiring more transparent disclosure of account terms.[49]
June
Carrie Prejean Miss California
June 1 - Nebraska's statewide smoking ban in restaurants, working places, and bars goes into effect.[50]
June 22 - DC Metro Train Collision claimed the lives of nine people including the operator in the lead car of the moving train, and approximately 80 were injured.
June 25 - The death of American entertainer Michael Jackson triggers an outpouring of worldwide grief. Online, reactions to the event cripple several major websites and services, as the abundance of people accessing the web addresses pushes internet traffic to potentially unprecedented levels.[54][55][56][57]
July
Sarah Palin resignation speech
July 3 - Alaska Governor Sarah Palin unexpectedly announces her resignation, effective July 26, 2009, citing the costs and distractions of battling frivolous ethics investigations launched against her,[58] and prompting several media outlets to speculate that she is preparing for a presidential run in 2012.
July 7 – A public memorial service is held for musician Michael Jackson. It is called one of the most prominent funerals of all time.[59][60][61]
July 7 - After an eight month recount battle, Al Franken is sworn in as the junior senator of Minnesota, giving Democrats a majority of sixty seats.
August
Protesters at a health care reform town hall meeting in West Hartford, Connecticut
August 26 - Kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard - a woman who was kidnapped as a child in 1991, is freed from her abductors, after 18 years of false imprisonment.
September 2 – The Justice Department announces the largest health care fraud settlement in history, $2.3 billion, involving Pfizer.[66]
September 8 – President Obama gives a speech to students across America encouraging good study habits and stressing the importance of a good education. The showing of speech had been highly criticized by some conservatives who said they feared the president would be indoctrinating schoolchildren with political propaganda.[67]
September 9 – President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress on the importance of healthcare reform. RepresentativeJoe Wilson (R-SC) shouts, "You lie!" as Obama says illegal immigrants would not be covered under his healthcare proposal. The heckling was a first in US politics and received widespread media attention for many days.[68]
September 12 – The first 9/12 Project protest event is held in Washington, DC, with attendance being estimated from hundreds of thousands to as many as 2 million people.[69] Numerous other tea party protests occurred nationwide as well.[70]
September 25 – At the G-20 Pittsburgh summit, world leaders announce that the G-20 will assume greater leverage over the global economy, replacing the role of the G-8, in an effort to prevent another global financial crisis like the one that started in 2007.[75]
September 27 – Polish-French film director Roman Polanski is arrested in Switzerland on a United States arrest warrant.[76]
October 1 - Late-night comedian David Letterman announces on his television program that he has been the victim of an extortion attempt by someone threatening to reveal that he had sex with his female employees.[77][78]
October 15 - In the balloon boy hoax, parents claim their young child has been swept away in a large balloon resembling a spacecraft, triggering an extensive rescue effort by authorities. They later admit to the hoax and are fined and given short sentences in jail.[82][83]
November 1 - Small business lender CIT Group files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (reorganization) which likely cancels its obligation to pay back the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) loan of $2.3 billion that it previously received the U.S. government.[85][86]
November 13 - Having analyzed the data from the LCROSS lunar impact, NASA announces that it has found a "significant" quantity of water in the Moon'sCabeus crater.[92][93]
November 27 - Golfing great Tiger Woods is involved in a car accident the day after Thanksgiving, triggering media coverage that the married father of two has had affairs with about one dozen women, and ultimately the loss of many of Woods' corporate sponsors.[94][95]
December 1 - Virginia's smoking ban for most restaurants and bars goes into effect. The bill had broad public support.[96].[97][98]
December 25 - Videos surface of missing GI, Bowe Bergdahl, being held by Taliban forces in Afghanistan since June. The videos are not considered proof he was still living because they appeared to be several months old.[99]
December 25 - As Northwest Airlines Flight 253 approaches its final destination of Detroit Michigan, Nigerian Al Qaeda member Abdulfarouk Umar Muttalab attempts to detonate plastic explosives concealed in his underwear. He is subdued by passengers and crew and arrested when the plane lands. The following day, he is charged in federal criminal court in Detroit, Michigan.
Deaths
It has been suggested that this section be split out into another article. (Discuss) (January 2010)
^"NASA's LCROSS Impacts Confirm Water in Lunar Crater" (Press release). NASA. 2009-11-13. Archived from the original on 2009-11-21. Retrieved 2009-11-21. Preliminary data from NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates the mission successfully uncovered water in a permanently shadowed lunar crater.
