February 1909 - February 9, 1909 (Tuesday)

February 9, 1909 (Tuesday)

• U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law a bill prohibiting the importation of opium into the United States. Importation would remain legal until April 1.
• Senator Philander C. Knox, President William Howard Taft's nominee for U.S. Secretary of State, was found to be constitutionally ineligible for the office because the salary for the post had been increased during his term. Article 1, Section 6, Paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution provided that "No Senator or Representative shall, during the term for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office ... which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time.". The problem was eventually solved by what would later be called the Saxbe fix (although it would not so named until 1973), by rolling back the salary for the position until March 3, 1911, when Knox's term would expire.
• The Maldivian island of Minicoy was signed over by its ruler, Imbicchi Ali-Adi Raja Bibi, to the Dominion of India.
• Born: Carmen Miranda, Portuguese-born actress and singer, in Marco de Canaveses (d. 1955); Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969, in Cherokee County, Georgia (d. 1994); and Harald Genzmer, German classical composer, in Bremen (d. 2007)