100 Fun Facts About 2009

Which river did US Airways Flight 1549 ditch in after geese disabled both engines over New York?

Ditching on the Hudson was the safest choice: simulator pilots reached LaGuardia only by turning instantly, and a return allowing 35 seconds to react failed.

Which Charlie's Angels star died hours before Michael Jackson on 25 June, her death overshadowed by his?

Farrah Fawcett left Charlie's Angels after only one season, and Cheryl Ladd joined the show in her place.

Stephen Colbert won NASA's poll to name a space station module, but what did NASA name after him instead?

A treadmill got the name COLBERT, while the module was named Tranquility to honour Apollo 11's landing site 40 years earlier.

Which country suspended its own currency in April, months after printing a 100-trillion note?

Zimbabwe's 100 trillion dollar notes soon became worthless, yet after the currency was abandoned they became popular with collectors.

Which company announced on 31 August that it would buy Marvel Entertainment for about $4 billion?

Disney's deal brought in Spider-Man, but Sony still owned his film rights, so Marvel Studios needed a 2015 agreement with Sony to use him.

Which band's 'Killing in the Name' became UK Christmas number one after a Facebook campaign to stop The X Factor?

Rage Against the Machine thanked fans with a free concert at London's Finsbury Park in June 2010, as the band had promised.

Jenson Button won the Formula One title with which team, in its only season before Mercedes bought it?

Brawn GP was saved from Honda's pull-out and confirmed just 23 days before the first race, yet its double-diffuser car won both championships.

Who took over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno on 1 June, only to lose it again after seven months?

Conan O'Brien left with a $45 million deal from NBC, about $12 million of which went to severance for his staff of nearly 200.

Which Microsoft operating system, released in October, replaced the widely criticised Vista?

Windows 7 was billed as the seventh version of Windows, yet it tells software it is version 6.1, only a small step up from Vista's 6.0.

Which city won the vote to host the 2016 Olympics in October, after Chicago was knocked out in the first round?

Rio de Janeiro won after bookmakers' favourite Chicago went out first, even though President Obama had flown to Copenhagen to address the IOC in person.

Which animated film opened the Cannes Film Festival on 13 May?

Up earned a Best Picture nomination in the first year the Academy expanded the category from five films to ten.

Which club paid Manchester United a world-record £80 million for Cristiano Ronaldo in the summer?

Cristiano Ronaldo left Real Madrid for Juventus in 2018, and three years later Manchester United signed him back.

Which player won his first Ballon d'Or, taking over from the 2008 winner Cristiano Ronaldo?

Lionel Messi needed growth-hormone treatment as a boy, and the club that signed him at 13 agreed to pay for it.

Alexander Rybak's fiddle-led 'Fairytale' won Eurovision in Moscow for which country?

Norway's entrant Alexander Rybak had been an unsuccessful contestant on the Norwegian Idol in 2005, yet four years later he won Eurovision.

Which one-man project from Owatonna, Minnesota, topped the Hot 100 with 'Fireflies', recorded in a parents' basement?

Owl City's Adam Young was still loading Coca-Cola delivery trucks when the songs he posted on MySpace got him signed by Universal Republic.

Amazon remotely wiped which author's novels from customers' Kindles in July, a move Jeff Bezos called 'stupid'?

George Orwell's books were deleted because the company that uploaded them had no rights to sell them, and Amazon then promised to stop removing books in such cases.

Which celebrity beat CNN in April to become the first Twitter user with one million followers?

Ashton Kutcher said beating CNN's breaking-news feed showed that one person could have a voice as loud as a whole media company.

Which one-word button did Facebook switch on in February?

Instead of the Dislike button many users had asked for, Facebook added five Reactions beside Like in 2016: Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry.

Minecraft, first released as a public alpha in 2009, was created by Markus 'Notch' Persson in which country?

Sweden's Mojang, the company behind Minecraft, was sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014, and its three founders, Persson included, left.

Which game took $310 million in North America and the UK in 24 hours, billed as entertainment's biggest launch ever?

Months after Modern Warfare 2's record launch, Activision fired the studio heads Jason West and Vince Zampella, who went on to found Respawn.

The iPhone game Angry Birds was built by the studio Rovio in which country?

Finland's Rovio only had enough money to make one game in 2009, and the idea it bet on was designer Jaakko Iisalo's sketch of angry birds.

Which Twilight Saga film set the record for the biggest midnight opening, taking $26.3 million on 20 November?

New Moon's $26.3 million from 3,514 theatres was the largest midnight gross in US and Canadian box-office history at the time, as fans queued for Bella's choice between Edward and Jacob.

Which original-series star returned in J. J. Abrams's Star Trek reboot, playing an older version of his own character?

Leonard Nimoy made the reboot while William Shatner did not, and one reason the director gave was that Shatner's Captain Kirk had already died on screen.

In which 1920s city is The Princess and the Frog set, where waitress Tiana dreams of opening her own restaurant?

Tiana was partly inspired by Leah Chase, a New Orleans chef who started out as a waitress and went on to run the Dooky Chase restaurant.

Jersey Shore, which introduced Snooki and The Situation on 3 December, premiered on which network?

MTV's Jersey Shore cast proudly called themselves guidos, a word the National Italian American Foundation condemned as a pejorative that reinforces negative stereotypes.

Which NBC hospital drama, launched in 1994, ended on 2 April after 15 seasons?

ER began as a Michael Crichton script that Steven Spielberg bought to direct, then shelved after hearing Crichton's story that became Jurassic Park.

Who was revealed in January as the Eleventh Doctor in Doctor Who, the youngest actor ever cast in the role?

Matt Smith had been set on becoming a professional footballer, playing for Leicester City's youth team, until a serious back injury ended that plan.

Who quit Oasis on 28 August after a backstage fight in Paris?

Noel Gallagher and his brother Liam did not reunite for almost 15 years, until Oasis announced in August 2024 that it had re-formed for a 2025 tour.

Whose remastered albums and a Rock Band video game were released together on 9 September, or 09/09/09?

The Beatles: Rock Band began with George Harrison's son Dhani, a Rock Band fan, who took the idea to the developer Harmonix and then won over the band's company, Apple Corps.

Which carmaker's 1 June bankruptcy filing was, at the time, the fourth-largest in US history?

General Motors came out of bankruptcy as a new company about 60% owned by the US government, with Canada's government and the autoworkers' union taking smaller stakes.

Whose thriller The Lost Symbol sold more than a million copies on its first day on sale?

Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was finally adapted in 2021 as a Peacock series, with Ashley Zukerman as a young Robert Langdon, and was cancelled after one season.

Which Pacific nation switched to driving on the left on 7 September, aligning with Australia and New Zealand?

Samoa made the switch so that Samoans living in Australia and New Zealand could ship used right-hand-drive cars home, and it declared a two-day holiday to ease the change.

Which street-dance troupe beat Susan Boyle in the final of Britain's Got Talent?

Diversity returned to Britain's Got Talent in 2020 with a Black Lives Matter routine that drew 24,500 complaints, all of which Ofcom dismissed.

Whose double handball set up William Gallas's goal that put France past Ireland into the World Cup in November?

Thierry Henry's handball cost Ireland a World Cup place, and in 2015 its FA revealed FIFA had paid it about €5 million, which its chief executive said was to avoid legal action.

Whom did Roger Federer beat 16–14 in the fifth set of the Wimbledon final to pass Pete Sampras's 14 major titles?

Andy Roddick led the second-set tie-break 6–2 with four set points, yet Federer won six points in a row and went on to take the final.

Which club beat Manchester United 2–0 in Rome to complete the first treble by a Spanish side?

Barcelona's new coach Pep Guardiola said in 2008 that Samuel Eto'o was not part of his plans, yet Eto'o stayed and scored the opening goal of the Rome final.

Who beat 59-year-old Tom Watson in a four-hole playoff at Turnberry, denying golf its oldest major champion?

Stewart Cink only reached the playoff because Tom Watson, needing just a par at the final hole to win, left his putt short and made bogey.

In February, which country's new prime minister became the world's first openly gay head of government?

Iceland's Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir had lost a party leadership race in 1994 and declared 'My time will come', a line that had become an Icelandic saying by the time she took power.

Yukio Hatoyama's landslide in August swept which group from power in Japan for only the second time since 1955?

The Liberal Democratic Party's defeat made Yukio Hatoyama prime minister, but he resigned after only eight months over his broken promise to move a US marine base off Okinawa.

Hillary Clinton handed Sergei Lavrov a red 'reset' button in Geneva, but its Russian label actually read what?

Sergei Lavrov told Hillary Clinton 'You got it wrong', since the label said Overload rather than reset, yet the two still pressed the button together for the cameras.

Sir Peter Viggers's 'floating duck island' surfaced in which scandal the Daily Telegraph exposed?

The MPs' expenses claim of £1,645 for the duck island was actually rejected, yet David Cameron still forced Sir Peter Viggers to agree to stand down at the next election.

Which NASA mission crashed a spent rocket stage into a crater near the Moon's south pole, finding water in the plume?

LCROSS's crash at first seemed a flop, as telescopes saw no plume, but five weeks later NASA announced its instruments had found water.

Which British singer co-wrote Miley Cyrus's 'Party in the U.S.A.' but chose not to record it herself?

Jessie J thought the song was amazing but not edgy enough for her, and it came from one of her very first writing sessions after signing her record deal.

Which veteran rock singer won the Album of the Year Grammy for Raising Sand, his duet album with Alison Krauss?

Robert Plant was still on tour with Alison Krauss in 2008 when he dismissed talk of a Led Zeppelin reunion tour as 'ridiculous', after the band's one-off London show.

Which Belgian mother won the US Open unranked, beating both Williams sisters in just her third event back?

Kim Clijsters reached the final on a penalty point, when Serena Williams, facing match point after a foot-fault call, was penalised for her tirade at the line judge.

Who overturned Tiger Woods's 54-hole lead at Hazeltine to become the first Asian-born man to win a golf major?

Y. E. Yang did not take up golf until he was 19, and he taught himself the game by copying the players he watched.

Which Romanian-born German novelist won the Nobel in Literature for depicting 'the landscape of the dispossessed'?

Herta Müller refused to become an informer for Romania's secret police while working as a factory translator, and was dismissed and threatened until she emigrated.

Which British singer topped the Hot 100 in October with 'Down', featuring Lil Wayne?

Jay Sean was studying medicine in London and only dropped out after signing his first record deal, with his father's blessing.

Which found-footage horror film, shot for $15,000, went wide in October after online fans 'demanded' it?

Paranormal Activity was first bought so it could be remade with a bigger budget, but the original played so well at a preview that the studio released it instead.

Who won Best Actor at Cannes for playing the SS 'Jew Hunter' Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds?

Christoph Waltz auditioned when Quentin Tarantino feared he had written an unplayable part and was ready to call off the film, and Tarantino said Waltz gave him his movie back.

Which December 2009 film overtook Titanic as the highest-grossing ever, both directed by James Cameron?

Avatar had its Na'vi language built from scratch by a USC linguist, Paul Frommer, and the cast were trained to speak it.

Which world leader was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2009, less than nine months after taking office?

Barack Obama had been president for less than two weeks when nominations for the prize closed.

Which rapper took the microphone from Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech at the 2009 Video Music Awards?

Kanye West was protesting on behalf of Beyoncé, who went on to win Video of the Year that night and called Swift back on stage to finish her speech.

Which singer scored the world's best-selling single of 2009 with 'Poker Face', from her debut album The Fame?

Lady Gaga took her stage name from the Queen song 'Radio Ga Ga'; her producer Rob Fusari says he was the first to call her that.

Which 2009 comedy has three friends wake in Las Vegas to find a missing groom and Mike Tyson's tiger?

The Hangover became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy in US history, taking a record that Beverly Hills Cop had held for almost 25 years.

Which financier was sentenced to 150 years in prison in June 2009 for running history's largest Ponzi scheme?

Bernie Madoff was reported to the authorities by his own two sons after he confessed to them; he had once chaired the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Which Fox musical comedy, launched in May 2009, follows the New Directions show choir at an Ohio high school?

Glee showed its pilot on 19 May 2009, then made viewers wait until September for the rest of the first season.

Which Canadian teenager, found through his YouTube covers, released the debut single 'One Time' in July 2009?

Justin Bieber was found by accident: manager Scooter Braun clicked on one of his home videos while searching for a different singer.

Which Danny Boyle film won eight Oscars in February 2009, including Best Picture, without a single acting nomination?

Slumdog Millionaire nearly went straight to video in the US: Warner Bros. doubted it would sell, until Fox Searchlight stepped in to release it.

Which actor posthumously won an Oscar in February 2009 for playing the Joker in The Dark Knight?

Heath Ledger's family accepted the award on his behalf, a year after his death; he was the fourth-youngest winner of the supporting-actor prize.

Which talk-show host announced in November 2009 that her daytime programme would end after its 25th season?

Oprah Winfrey opened that final season by inviting her whole studio audience of 300 on an eight-day trip to Sydney, Australia.

Which digital currency's first block, mined in January 2009, carried a Times headline about a bank bailout?

Bitcoin was first used in a known purchase in May 2010, when a programmer paid 10,000 coins for two Papa John's pizzas.

Which messaging app did former Yahoo employees Jan Koum and Brian Acton launch for the iPhone in 2009?

WhatsApp was named to echo the greeting 'what's up', and Facebook bought it in 2014 for about $19 billion.

Which group topped the Hot 100 for 26 straight weeks in 2009 with 'Boom Boom Pow' and then 'I Gotta Feeling'?

Black Eyed Peas replaced themselves at number one: 'I Gotta Feeling' debuted at number two, right behind 'Boom Boom Pow', and then took over.

Which ABC mockumentary sitcom, launched in September 2009, follows the Pritchett and Dunphy households of Los Angeles?

Modern Family grew out of creators Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan swapping stories about their own families, and it won five Emmys for best comedy series.

Which 2009 PopCap tower-defence game is fought across a suburban home's front lawn, backyard pool and roof?

Plants vs. Zombies began with aliens as the enemy and the working title Weedlings, until its designer sketched what he called the perfect zombie.

Which Harry Potter film reached cinemas in July 2009, eight months later than planned despite being finished?

Half-Blood Prince dropped a battle at Hogwarts from the end of the book, so that it would not repeat the one planned for the final film.

Sandra Bullock won the Best Actress Oscar for which 2009 film about NFL lineman Michael Oher and the Tuohy family?

The Blind Side is based on a 2006 book by Michael Lewis, and it casts the country singer Tim McGraw as Bullock's husband.

Pirates from which country seized the cargo ship Maersk Alabama in April 2009 and held Captain Richard Phillips hostage?

Pirates from Somalia had made the first successful seizure of a US-flagged ship since the early 19th century; Navy SEAL snipers ended the standoff four days later.

Which life-simulation game, released by Electronic Arts in June 2009, sold 1.4 million copies in its first week?

The Sims 3 introduced an open world: for the first time, Sims could roam their whole neighbourhood without a single loading screen.

Which ride-hailing company did Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick start in San Francisco in 2009?

Uber traded as UberCab until 2011, when complaints from San Francisco's taxi operators pushed it to drop the Cab.

Which politician's memoir Going Rogue, a number-one bestseller in November 2009, was co-written by Lynn Vincent?

Sarah Palin signed the book deal while she was governor of Alaska, and worked on the manuscript in the weeks after she resigned the job.

Which 2009 debut novel by Kathryn Stockett is set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960s?

The Help was turned down by 60 literary agents over three years before one agreed to represent Stockett, who had spent five years writing it.

Which young-adult novel, published in September 2009, forces Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark to return to the arena?

Catching Fire was due out on 8 September, but retailers asked for it a week early, to have it on shelves before Labor Day and the start of school.

Which CW drama, launched in September 2009, is set in Mystic Falls, Virginia, home of the Salvatore brothers?

The Vampire Diaries ran for eight seasons and 171 episodes, and its heroine Elena falls for a vampire who is 162 years old.

Which sitcom, launched in April 2009, stars Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a small-town Indiana bureaucrat?

Parks and Recreation spends its first season on a single promise: Leslie vows to turn an abandoned construction pit into a park.

Which search engine did Microsoft launch in June 2009 as the replacement for its Live Search service?

Bing went on to power a rival as well: Microsoft struck a deal that put its results behind Yahoo's search page.

Which 2009 stop-motion film, based on a Neil Gaiman novella, features an 'Other Mother' with buttons for eyes?

Coraline came about because Gaiman, a fan of the director's earlier stop-motion films, offered him the story as he was finishing the novella.

Which 1963 picture book did director Spike Jonze turn into a live-action film in October 2009?

Where the Wild Things Are was in development as a computer-animated film until 2003, when it switched to live action; its author, Maurice Sendak, was one of the producers.

Susan Boyle's Britain's Got Talent audition, a viral hit in April 2009, featured a song from which musical?

Les Misérables supplied 'I Dreamed a Dream', which also gave its title to Boyle's first album: the UK's fastest-selling debut album to that point.

Which Chief Justice fumbled the presidential oath at the January 2009 inauguration, prompting a do-over the next day?

John Roberts was swearing in a president who, as a senator, had voted against his confirmation to the court: a first for any chief justice.

Who joined the US Supreme Court in August 2009, taking the seat of the retiring David Souter?

Sonia Sotomayor, the court's first Latina justice, was already known to sports fans: as a federal judge, she issued the ruling that ended the 1994 baseball strike after 232 days.

Which Star Wars actor voices the Joker in the 2009 game Batman: Arkham Asylum, reprising his animated-series role?

Mark Hamill has thousands of lines in the game, far more than Kevin Conroy's Batman, and reviewers singled out his cackling performance.

Which 2009 game casts players as Ezio Auditore, a young Florentine seeking revenge in Renaissance Italy?

Assassin's Creed II gives Ezio a famous friend: a young Leonardo da Vinci builds his weapons and lends him a flying machine for one mission.

Which free-to-play battle arena game did Riot Games release in October 2009 as a successor to Defense of the Ancients?

League of Legends was planned with 20 champions, but Riot doubled that number before the full release.

Which crowdfunding site, launched in April 2009, collects no money unless a project reaches its funding goal?

Kickstarter was started by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler, and by late 2019 only about 37% of its projects had reached their goal.

Which bookseller launched the Nook e-reader in November 2009 to compete with Amazon's Kindle?

Barnes & Noble gave the first Nook two screens: a six-inch e-paper page for reading and a separate, smaller colour touchscreen for the controls.

Michael Jackson's planned 2009 comeback residency, This Is It, was booked for which London venue?

The O2 Arena run grew from 10 dates to 50 on demand, and 750,000 tickets went in four hours; Jackson died 18 days before opening night.

Which country's 26-year civil war ended in May 2009 with the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers?

Sri Lanka's army broke through the rebels' last defences on 16 May and took the final strip of coast they held; the Tigers admitted defeat a day later.

Which novel about Thomas Cromwell's rise at the Tudor court won the 2009 Booker Prize for Hilary Mantel?

Wolf Hall takes its title from the Wiltshire seat of the Seymour family, and it opened a trilogy that Mantel completed in 2020.

Who became Britain's first female Poet Laureate in May 2009, when Andrew Motion's ten-year term ended?

Carol Ann Duffy had been passed over for the post in 1999, when it went to Motion; she was also its first Scottish-born holder.

Which 4.4-million-year-old skeleton from Ethiopia did the journal Science unveil in eleven papers in October 2009?

Ardi began as a fragment of hand bone found by a college student in 1994, and it took 15 years of study before the skeleton was published.

Under which codename did Microsoft unveil its Kinect motion-sensing camera at the E3 show in June 2009?

Project Natal was named by its Brazilian creator, Alex Kipman, after a city in his home country, and Steven Spielberg helped introduce it on stage.

Which central European country adopted the euro on 1 January 2009, giving up its own koruna?

Slovakia converted at 30.126 korunas to the euro, the fourth of the 2004 EU entrants to join after Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta.

Who won American Idol in May 2009, defeating runner-up Adam Lambert after nearly 100 million votes were cast?

Kris Allen's win stirred a row over a claim that as many as 38 million of the votes came from Arkansas, his home state of under 3 million people.

Which NASA space telescope, launched in March 2009, was designed to find Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars?

Kepler was named after Johannes Kepler, an astronomer who, ironically, was convinced that no other stars had planetary systems.

Which Federal Reserve chairman did Time magazine name its Person of the Year for 2009?

Ben Bernanke was a scholar of the Great Depression, and he argued that the Fed's novel crisis measures had prevented a catastrophe even greater than that.

Which studio launched the farming game FarmVille on Facebook in 2009, where it peaked at 34.5 million daily players?

Zynga saw FarmVille become Facebook's most popular game for over two years; the original closed in 2020, when the site stopped supporting Flash.

Which Italian carmaker became a part-owner of Chrysler when it emerged from bankruptcy in June 2009?

Fiat bought the rest of Chrysler in 2014, and the merged company later joined Peugeot's parent group to form Stellantis.

The 2009 International Year of Astronomy marked 400 years since which scientist's first telescope observations?

Galileo pointed a telescope at the night sky in 1609 and found mountains and craters on the lunar surface and satellites circling Jupiter.