WThe Sidekick data outage of 2009 resulted in an estimated 800,000 smartphone users in the United States temporarily losing personal data, such as emails, address books and photos from their mobile handsets. The computer servers holding the data were run by Microsoft. The brand of phone affected was the Danger Hiptop, also known as the "Sidekick", and were connected via the T-Mobile cellular network. At the time, it was described as the biggest disaster in cloud computing history.
WThe Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) was the Congressionally created 14-member federal commission focused on planning and commemorating the 200th birthday of the United States' 16th president on February 12, 2009. The commission served for ten years, from 2000 to 2010. Its official successor organization, announced in 2011 with an expanded board and broadened mission, is The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation.
WIn 2009, workers at offices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a non-profit organization that had been involved for nearly 40 years in voter registration, community organizing and advocacy for low- and moderate-income people, were secretly recorded by conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe – and the videos "heavily edited" to create a misleading impression of their activities.
W"Gunwalking", or "letting guns walk", was a tactic used by the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office and the Arizona Field Office of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which ran a series of sting operations between 2006 and 2011 in the Tucson and Phoenix area where the ATF "purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them". These operations were done under the umbrella of Project Gunrunner, a project intended to stem the flow of firearms into Mexico by interdicting straw purchasers and gun traffickers within the United States. The Jacob Chambers Case began in October 2009 and eventually became known in February 2010 as "Operation Fast and Furious" after agents discovered Chambers and the other suspects under investigation belonged to a car club.
WThe "Balloon Boy" hoax occurred on October 15, 2009, when a homemade helium-filled gas balloon shaped to resemble a silver flying saucer was released into the atmosphere above Fort Collins, Colorado, by Richard and Mayumi Heene. They then claimed that their six-year-old son Falcon was trapped inside it. Authorities confirmed the balloon reached 7,000 feet (2,100 m) during its 90-minute flight. The event attracted worldwide attention, and Falcon was nicknamed "Balloon Boy" in the media.
WA ban on caffeinated alcoholic drinks is a ban which prevents the marketing and distribution of any prepackaged caffeinated alcoholic drink.
WThe 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the tenth edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup competition, and the twentieth soccer championship of North America, Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF). It was played from July 3 to 26, 2009 in the United States. This competition was the fourth tournament without guests from other confederations. Mexico won their fifth Gold Cup, and eighth CONCACAF Championship overall, after beating the United States 5–0 in the final. It was the second consecutive Gold Cup final and fourth overall to feature Mexico and the United States and the third won by Mexico.
WThe Countrywide financial political loan scandal in 2008-2009 involved U.S. politicians who allegedly received favorable mortgage rates.
WThe District of Columbia and United States Territories quarters were a series of quarters minted by the United States Mint in 2009 to honor the District of Columbia and the unincorporated United States insular areas of Puerto Rico, Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The islands commonly grouped together as the United States Minor Outlying Islands were not featured, as the law defined the word "territory" as being limited to the areas mentioned above. They followed the completion of the 50 State Quarters Program. The coins used the same George Washington obverse as with the quarters of the previous 10 years. The reverse of the quarters featured a design selected by the Mint depicting the federal district and each territory. Unlike on the 50 State quarters, the motto "E Pluribus Unum" preceded and was the same size as the mint date on the reverse.
WThe 2009 G20 Pittsburgh Summit was the third meeting of the G20 heads of state/heads of government to discuss financial markets and the world economy.
WUSNS Impeccable (T-AGOS-23) is an Impeccable-class ocean surveillance ship acquired by the U.S. Navy in 2001 and assigned to Military Sealift Command's Special Missions Program.
WMiss America 2009, the 82nd Miss America pageant, was held on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada on Saturday, January 24, 2009. The winner was Katie Stam from Indiana, the first woman representing that state to take the crown.
WThe Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 is a land management law passed in the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 30, 2009. The bill designates millions of acres in the US as protected and establishes a National Landscape Conservation System. It includes funding for programs, studies and other activities by the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture, and in some cases bars further geothermal leasing, oil and gas leasing, and new mining patents on certain stretches of protected land.
WThe Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is a NASA satellite mission intended to provide global space-based observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The original spacecraft was lost in a launch failure on 24 February 2009, when the payload fairing of the Taurus rocket which was carrying it failed to separate during ascent. The added mass of the fairing prevented the satellite from reaching orbit. It subsequently re-entered the atmosphere and crashed into the Indian Ocean near Antarctica. The replacement satellite, Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, was launched 2 July 2014 aboard a Delta II rocket. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3, a stand-alone payload built from the spare OCO-2 flight instrument, was installed on the International Space Station's Kibō Exposed Facility in May 2019.
WPicher is a ghost town and former city in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, United States. This was a major national center of lead and zinc mining at the heart of the Tri-State Mining District.
WOn May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama announced his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to replace retiring Justice David Souter. Sotomayor's nomination was submitted to the United States Senate on June 1, 2009, when the 111th Congress reconvened after its Memorial Day recess. Sotomayor was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 6, 2009 by a 68–31 vote and was commissioned by President Obama the same day. She was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts on August 8, 2009.
WThe withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq began in December 2007 with the end of the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 and was mostly completed by December 2011, bringing an end to the Iraq War. The number of U.S. military forces in Iraq peaked at 170,300 in November 2007.