| 9 February 1598 | England [political events] | The English Parliament is dissolved, having enacted a Poor Law statute whose basic tenets are followed until 1834. Parish tithes for the relief of destitution through the institution of workhouses and the appointment of ‘Guardians of the Poor’ complement regularized punishments for ‘undeserving’ so-called ‘Sturdy Beggars’. |
| 9 February 1621 | Papal States, Italy [political events] | Alessandro Ludovisi, cardinal of Bologna, is elected Pope Gregory XV, following the death of Pope Paul V on 28 January. |
| 9 February 1670 | Denmark-Norway [administration] | Following his death of Frederick III, Christian V succeeds his father as king of Denmark. |
| 9 February 1674 | UK, United Netherlands [treaties] | Owing to parliamentary pressure, King Charles II of England is forced to negotiate the Treaty of Westminster, thereby bringing the third Anglo-Dutch war to an end. The Dutch accept the British right of salute in the Channel and agree to pay a small indemnity. New York City is returned to Britain but the Dutch monopoly of trade in the East Indies is preserved. |
| 9 February 1788 | Habsburg Monarchy, Ottoman Empire [Russian–Ottoman Wars (1768–1878)] | The Habsburg monarch and Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II declares war on the Ottoman Empire. |
| 9 February 1801 | France, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy [treaties] | The Treaty of Lunéville, following the French defeat of Austria in Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign of 1800–01, marks the virtual destruction of the Holy Roman Empire. France gains all territory west of the Rhine, including Belgium and Luxembourg. The grand duchy of Tuscany is ceded to the duchy of Parma to form the new kingdom of Etruria, and recognition is given to the Batavian, Cisalpine, Helvetian, and Ligurian republics. |
| 9 February 1811 | England [births and deaths] | Nevil Maskelyne, English astronomer who developed a method of determining longitude by observing the Moon, and published The British Mariner's Guide (1763) and the Nautical Almanac (1766), dies in Greenwich, London, England (78). |
| 9 February 1849 | Papal States, Italy [revolution] | The Papal States in Italy are proclaimed a republic (the Roman Republic) under the Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini. |
| 9 February 1881 | Russia [births and deaths] | Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist best known for Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Brothers Karamazov (1879–80), dies in St Petersburg, Russia (59). |
| 9 February 1934 | Greece, Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia [treaties] | Greece, Turkey, Romania, and Yugoslavia form the Balkan Entente as a counterpart to the Little Entente (Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia), with the aim of preventing attack by another Balkan state. |
| 9 February 1942 | USA [World War II (1939–45)] | Clocks in the USA turn ahead one hour for daylight savings time, where they will remain for the duration of World War II. |
| 9 February 1944 | USA [births and deaths] | Alice Walker, US novelist, author of The Color Purple (1983), born in Eatonton, Georgia. |
| 9 February–23 April 1998 | Nigeria., Sierra Leone [wars] | Nigeria launches an artillery attack against Sierra Leone's military junta in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Fighting continues for several weeks until ousted president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah returns. |
| 9 February 1998 | USA [medicine] | US scientist David Ho reports the discovery of the HIV virus in a 1959 blood sample and suggests that the transfer from ape to human occurred in the late 1940s or early 1950s. |
