The last 12 months have proved 2009 to be a busy year for news.
From the wild winter weather to Susan Boyle’s instant fame, a global flu pandemic and the BNP’s Nick Griffin’s controversial appearance on BBC’s Question Time. Every day, your Evening Times brought you breaking news from Glasgow, Scotland and around the globe. Here, we take a look back the big stories.
September
1: European leaders remember the victims of the Second World War at ceremonies marking the start of the conflict 70 years ago.
2: Two British boys planning a bloodbath at a Manchester school are caught after trying to emulate the Columbine High School massacre.
8: A gang escapes with more than £100,000 after hijacking a Group 4 security van on its way to a Bank of Scotland in Clarkston
9: Scotland lose to Holland at home and fail to qualify for the 2010 Football World Cup
10: Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologises for the post-war treatment of celebrated Second World War code-breaker Alan Turing.
11: Tributes are paid to 29-year-old Scots soldier Corporal John Harrison, who died in Afghanistan attempting to rescue a kidnapped journalist
14: Actor Patrick Swayze, left, dies at 57, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
16: We reveal five of Glasgow’s poorest areas have the highest drink death toll in the UK.
18: Firhill, the home of Partick Thistle, celebrates its centenary.
22: A £1billion project to improve train services between Glasgow and Edinburgh is announced.
23: A Scottish £1 banknote, dated 1836, sells for a world record £9,000 at auction.
23: A purge on ‘rogue’ private hire taxis in Glasgow finds 111 offences committed, with 22 cars being taken off the road.
24: Police in the city arrest 120 people in a crackdown on troublemaking neds.
27: Film director Roman Polanski is arrested in Zurich on a 31-year old US arrest warrant.
29: Nine pub pals from the Doon Inn in Blantyre scoop a £4.5m win on the lottery.
OCTOBER
1: The Mobo (Music of Black Origin) Awards are held outside of London for the first time, at Glasgow’s SECC, with N-Dubz winning the award for Best UK Act.
2: The International Olympic Committee awards the 2016 summer games to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
3: Ireland approves the European Union’s Treaty of Lisbon by a margin of 67.1% to 32.9% in a second referendum.
9: President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize – despite being nominated a mere two weeks after becoming President.
10: Boyzone singer Stephen Gately dies.
14: Job-hunters bombard a hotline set up to recruit staff for the new Glasgow branch of world famous toy shop Hamleys.
17: Horrified commuters watched as a man leapt 125 feet to his death at the Erskine Bridge during rush hour.
18: Jenson Button wins the 2009 Formula One World Championship at Interlagos, Brazil.
22: Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time causes uproar, with many groups protesting the BBC’s decision to give the racist group mainstream publicity.
23: Glasgow City Council announce plans to axe jobs by offering over 55s the option to take early retirement.
NOVEMBER
2: An eleventh hour bid to save the world-famous Barras market in Glasgow is drawn up.
6: We reveal that a new series of Taggart will be filmed next year – even if bosses at ITV in London do not commission it.
7: A British tourist is shot dead by a masked gunman in Texas.
9: World leaders mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
11: For the first time since World War One, the leaders of Germany and France appear together at a ceremony on Remembrance Day.
18: Thierry Henry ensures France qualify for the 2010 Football World Cup by using his hand to score, which the referee does not spot.
20: PC Bill Barker was swept away during the devastating floods in Cumbria, as he tried to save lives by directing motorists off a bridge across a swollen river. His body, still in uniform, was later found on a nearby beach. Residents in the Cumbrian towns of Cockermouth and Workington were hit by torrential rain causing flooding and severe damage.
DECEMBER
1: Radio Clyde legend Tiger Tim is to try a “revolutionary” new treatment in his 20-year battle with multiple sclerosis.
2: We reveal the outsourcing of cleaning services could be putting patients’ lives at risk in Scots hospitals. More than 300 surgical instruments have been returned to NHS hospitals dirty or broken by the private firm hired to sterilise them.
12: Tiger Woods announces his indefinite leave from golf, after a series of allegations claiming he has had multiple affairs with many women while married to Swedish wife Elin.
13: Former Prime Minister Tony Blair states he would have gone to war in Iraq even if he had known that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.
29: Susan Boyle arrived at Tokyo’s international airport, as she took her act to Japan. The 48-year-old church volunteer from West Lothian rocketed to fame after her surprising performance on Britain’s Got Talent. She is set to appear on Japan’s premier vocal variety show, which will be aired tonight.
