Portal:Biography/Selected anniversaries/December 9

Births

 * 1447 – Chenghua Emperor, Emperor of the Chinese Ming Dynasty (d. 1487)
 * 1608 – John Milton, English poet (d. 1674)
 * 1787 – John Dobson, English architect and designer of Eldon Square and Lilburn Tower (d. 1865)
 * 1868 – Fritz Haber, German chemist and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934)
 * 1883 – Alexander Papagos, 152nd Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1955)
 * 1883  – Joseph Pilates, developer of Pilates (d. 1967)

Deaths

 * 1641 – Anthony van Dyck, Belgian painter (b. 1599)
 * 1916 – Natsume Sōseki, Japanese author (b. 1867)
 * 1937 – Gustaf Dalén, Swedish physicist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1869)
 * 1964 – Edith Sitwell, English poet and critic (b. 1887)
 * 1996 – Mary Leakey, English archaeologist and anthropologist (b. 1913)
 * 2012 – Norman Joseph Woodland, co-creator of the bar code (b. 1921)