June 9
© 1997, 1998 by Paul A. Schons
June 9, 1640
Birth of Leopold I in Vienna. As Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire he brought Austria to a position of influence.
June 9, 1775
Birth of Georg Friedrich Grotefend in Münden, Germany. Grotefend made the first major breakthrough in the decipherment of ancient Persian cuneiform script.
June 9, 1810
Birth of Otto Nicolai in Königsberg (then Prussia), the composer of Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor).
June 9, 1812
Birth of Johann Goffried Galle in Gräfenhainichen, Germany. He was the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune (Berlin Observatory).
June 9, 1832
Death of Friedrich Gentz in Vienna, Austria. Gentz studied in Königsberg with the philosopher, Immanuel Kant. When the French Revolution took place he greeted it as an awakening of the human spirit, but he soon recognized the shortcomings and spent the rest of his life in opposition. In 1803 he took up residence in Vienna where he became a friend of the foreign minister, Prinz von Metternich. Under Metternich he became an official at the Viennese court and a personal advisor to Metternich.
June 9, 1843
Birth of Bertha von Suttner in Prague (then Austrian Empire). Von Suttner was an Austrian novelist and a noted pacifist. She influenced Alfred Nobel to establish the prize for peace.
June 9, 1940
Norway surrenders to Germany in World War II.
June 9, 1959
Death of Adolf Windaus in Göttingen, Germany. Windaus won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1928 for his research on vitamin D. Windau was a professor at the University of Göttingen.
June 9, 1978
A Gutenberg Bible was sold in London for $2, 400,000. (Johannes Gutenberg invented printing for the West in his workshop in Mainz, Germany.)
June 9, 2000
The Austrian writer of experimental literature, Ernst Jandl, dies in Vienna at age 74. The writer of lyric, dramas and radio plays had won the Georg Büchner Prize for literature. His volumes of poetry include, "Andere Augen" (1956), "Laut und Luise" (1966) and "Sprechblasen" (1969). Plays by Jandl include Fünf Mann Menschen, Der Gigant and Spaltungen.