How many days and weeks until December 9th?

On December 9th 1868 the world’s first traffic signal came into use outside the Houses of Parliament, at the corner of Bridge Street and Great George Street: a gas-lit semaphore worked by hand by a constable, red and green after dark. It was a success for rather less than a month. In January a gas leak caused an explosion that injured the policeman operating it, the signal was taken down, and London managed without traffic lights for nearly sixty years.

Coronation Street was broadcast live for the first time on December 9th 1960, written by Tony Warren, who was twenty-four and had argued his way onto the schedules against considerable resistance. The Daily Mirror’s television critic wrote that the programme was doomed. It has not left the schedules since, and Warren’s cobbled terrace has outlasted most of the real streets it was drawn from.

A global commission certified on December 9th 1979 that smallpox had been eradicated, the only human disease so far driven from the world. The method descended directly from Edward Jenner’s experiment with cowpox in a Gloucestershire village in 1796.

Judi Dench’s Academy Award was for playing Elizabeth I in a part that occupies about eight minutes of the film — a fitting sliver of a role for an actress whose career on stage and screen has made her one of Britain’s most garlanded. She is a York woman, born on December 9th 1934.

Born on December 9th: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

Judi Dench and Kirk Douglas — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a December 9th birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — turquoise or lapis lazuli for the stone, Sagittarius for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

December birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual December birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

View on Amazon

Sagittarius constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Sagittarius for a December 9th birthday.

View on Amazon

Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the December birthstone and the narcissus or holly — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

View on Amazon

Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on December 9th, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

View on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Availability and links were checked on 15 August 2026 and can change.