2009 World Events

January 8: In the BCS title game, the University of Florida Gators defeat the University of Oklahoma Sooners 24-14 to win the BCS national championship.

January 20: Barak Obama is inaugurated as President of the United States. President Obama is the 44th President and the first African American to hold that office.

February 1: The Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Arizona Cardinals 27 to 23 in Super Bowl XLIII.

February 15: Nascar racing driver Matt Kenseth wins the 51st running of the Daytona 500. The race is called short after 152 laps because of rain.

February 22: The 81st annual Academy Awards Ceremony is held in Los Angeles, California. The film "Slumdog Millionaire" wins the Oscar for best picture. Actor Sean Penn wins the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in "Milk." Actress Kate Winslett wins the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in "The Reader".

March 7: NASA launches the Kepler satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. This mission is intended to search for extrasolar planets in the Milky Way galaxy.

May 2: A horse named Mine That Bird wins the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby. Mine That Bird is a long shot with 50 to 1 odds. It is the longest shot to win the race in over 85 years.

May 24: Helio Castroneves wins the 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500. He becomes the first driver born out of the United States to win the race more than twice.

May 31: Millvena Dean, the last survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic dies at the age of 97. Dean was only nine weeks old at the time of the Titanic disaster. May 31st also happened to be the 98th anniversary of the launch of the Titanic.

June 3: American actor David Carridine is found dead in his hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand. Carridine is 72 years old and was the actor in the popular "Kung Fu" television series.

June 12: The Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the Detroit Red Wings 4 games to 3 to win the 2009 NHL Stanley Cup.

June 14: The Los Angeles Lakers defeat the Orlando Magic 4 games to 1 to win the 2009 NBA Championship.

June 18: NASA launches the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/LCROSS probes towards the Moon. It is the first NASA mission to return to the Moon since 1998.

June 25: American actress Farrah Fawcett dies at the age of 62. She was one of the original stars in the television series "Charlie's Angels" Fawcett had been battling cancer.

June 25: Music icon Michael Jackson dies at the age of 50 years old in Los Angeles, California. Jackson had been training for a comeback series of concerts scheduled to occur in London, England.

July 15: NASA launches Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-127. It is another construction mission for the International Space Station. The crew on board Endeavour at launch is Commander Mark Polansky, Pilot Douglas Hurley, Mission Specialist 1 Christopher Cassidy, Mission Specialist 2 Julie Payette, Mission Specialist 3 Thomas Marshburn, Mission Specialist 4 David Wolf, and Mission Specialist 5 Timothy Kopra.

July 17: Iconic television reporter Walter Cronkite dies at the age of 92 in New York City, New York. Cronkite was well known for his coverage of the U.S. space program. He was the anchor of the CBS Evening News and ended his broadcast with the phrase "And that's the way it is ..."