The Beijing Electron-Positron Collider has been upgraded to a two-ring collider (BEPCII) with a design luminosity of $1 \times 10^{33}$cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ at a center-of-mass energy of 3.78 GeV. With this luminosity, the brand new BESIII detector will be able to collect, for example, more than 1 billion $J/\psi$ events in one year of running. It will operate between 2 and 4.6 GeV, allowing precision studies of charmonium ($J/\psi$, $\psi'$, $\psi(3770)$, $\eta_c$, $\chi_{cJ}$, and $h_c$), charm ($D$ and $D_s$ mesons), and improved determinations of the tau mass and the hadronic cross section ($R$) in this energy region. This is a unique facility in the world opening many physics opportunities.
During 2009, BESIII acquired in four weeks of running a sample of 106 M $\psi'$ events, or four times the CLEOc sample, and in six weeks of running 226 M $J/\psi$ events, or about four times the BESII $J/\psi$ sample. Results will be presented from these first data sets including a confirmation of the $p\bar{p}$ threshold enhancement in $J/\psi \to \gamma p\bar{p}$, seen in BESII. Also measurements of the branching ratios for $\chi_{cJ} \to \pi^0 \pi^0$ and $\eta \eta$ and first measurements of the branching ratios for $\psi' \to \pi^0 h_c$ and $h_c \to \gamma \eta_c$, as well as measurements of the mass and width of the $h_c$, will be reported.
