1914
1914 is a common year starting on Thursday . (see link for calendar)
Events
January 4 - 77 seal hunters freeze to death on ice near Labrador .
January 5 - Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.
February 13 - Copyright : In New York City the ASCAP (for American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
March 10 - Suffragette Mary Richardson damages Velasquez painting Rokeby Venus in London’s national gallery with a meat chopper.
March 16 - Wife of French minister Joseph Caillaux shoots Gaston Calmet , the editor of Le Figaro March 27 - Belgian surgeon A. Hustin makes the first successful blood transfusion , using anticoagulants .
April 14 - The city of Irving, Texas is incorporated.
April 21 - 3000 US marines land in Vera Cruz , Mexico .
The American Radio Relay League is founded.
May 9 - J.T. Hearne becomes the first bowler to take 3000 first-class wickets.
May 14 - Woodrow Wilson signs Mother's Day proclamation.
May 14 - The Hellenic Holocaust begins in the Ottoman Empire .
May 25 - The United Kingdom 's House of Commons passes Irish Home Rule .
May 29 - The ocean liner Empress of Ireland sinks in Gulf of St. Lawrence ; 1,024 lives lost.
June 1 - Woodrow Wilson 's envoy Edward Mandell House meets with Kaiser Wilhelm II .
June 28 - The assassination in Sarajevo : Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife, the Archduchess Sophie are killed by Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo , Bosnia .
July 18 - The Signal Corps of the United States Army is formed, giving definite status to its air service for the first time.
July 28 - World War I begins: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia after it fails to meet the conditions of an ultimatum it set on July 23 following the Sarajevo assassination.
July 31 - French pacifist Jean Jaures is assassinated.
August 1 - Germany declares war on Russia , following Russia's military mobilization in support of Serbia.
August 2 - German troops occupy Luxembourg .
August 2 - Secret treaty between Turkey and Germany to secure Turkish neutrality
August 3 - Germany declares war on Russia's ally France .
August 4 - German troops invade neutral Belgium . Britain declares war on Germany after the latter fails to respect Belgian neutrality. The United States declares neutrality.
August 5 - In Cleveland, Ohio , the first electric traffic light is installed.
August 15 - The Panama Canal opens to traffic.
August 20 - World War I : German forces occupy Brussels .
August 23 - Japan declares war on Germany.
September 1 - St. Petersburg, Russia changes its name to Petrograd.
September 5 - London Agreement - no member of Triple Entente (Britain , France , or Russia ) may seek a separate peace with Central Powers .
September 5 - World War I : First Battle of the Marne begins - Northeast of Paris , the French 6th Army under General Michel-Joseph Maunoury attack German forces who are advancing on the capital. Over 2 million troops will fight in the battle and 100,000 will be killed or wounded in this significant Allied victory.
September 6 - French and British counterattack at Marne ends German advance on Paris .
September 17 - Andrew Fisher becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.
September 26 - The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) established by the Federal Trade Commission Act .
October 9 - World War I : Siege of Antwerp - Antwerp , Belgium falls to German troops.
October 29 - World War I: Ottoman warships shell Russian Black Sea ports: Russia, France, and Britain declare war on November 1-5.
November 1 - World War I: Battle of Coronel fought - A Royal Navy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock is met and defeated by the superior German forces led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee . This is the first British naval defeat of the war .
November 4 - Britain and France declares war on Turkey
November 5 - The United Kingdom annexes Cyprus , and together with France declares war on the Ottoman Empire
November 16 - A year after being created by passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 , the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens for business.
November 28 - World War I : Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading.
Unknown dates
Ongoing events
Births
January 1 - Noor Inayat Khan , World War II heroine (executed) (d. 1944 )
January 4 - Jane Wyman , American actress
January 5 - George Reeves , American actor (d. 1959 )
January 6 - Danny Thomas , American singer, actor, and comedian (d. 1991 )
January 14 - Harold Russell , actor (d. 2002 )
January 17 - William Stafford , poet and pacifist (d. 1993 )
January 18 - Arno Schmidt , author (d. 1979 )
January 30 - John Ireland , actor (d. 1992 )
January 30 - David Wayne , actor (d. 1995 )
January 31 - Jersey Joe Walcott , boxer (d. 1994 )
February 4 - Alfred Andersch , narrator and author of radio drama (d. 1980 )
February 4 - Ida Lupino , actress, director, writer (d. 1995 )
February 5 - William S. Burroughs , American author (d. 1997 )
February 6 - Thurl Ravenscroft , voice actor
February 9 - Ernest Tubb , country music singer (d. 1984 )
February 11 - Matt Dennis , singer
February 11 - French Duynstee , Dutch constitutional lawyer
February 11 - Winand Borgerhoff Mulder court judge of Amsterdam
February 11 - Menelaos Pallantios , composer
February 12 - Tex Beneke , musician, band leader (d. 2000 )
February 24 - Zachary Scott , American actor (d. 1965 )
March 1 - Ralph Ellison , American writer (d. 1994 )
March 2 - Martin Ritt , director (d. 1990 )
March 6 - Kiril Kondrashin , Russian conductor (d. 1981 )
March 13 - Edward O'Hare , American pilot (d. 1943 )
March 17 - Sammy Baugh , American football star
March 19 - Jay Berwanger , football star, 1st Heisman Trophy winner (d. 2002 )
March 25 - Norman Borlaug , plant breeder
March 26 - William Westmoreland , United States commander in the Vietnam War
March 28 - Edmund Muskie , American politician (d. 1996 )
March 30 - Sonny Boy Williamson , musician
March 31 - Octavio Paz , Mexican author, Nobel Prize for Literature (d. 1998 )
April 2 - Alec Guinness , English actor (d. 2000 )
April 4 - Marguerite Duras , French writer (d. 1996 )
April 22 - Jan de Hartog , writer (d. 2002 )
April 25 - Ross Lockridge, Jr. , writer (d. 1948 )
April 26 - Bernard Malamud , American author (d. 1986 )
April 26 - Lilian Rolfe , SOE agent (executed) (d. 1945 )
Arnold Gerschwiler , figure skating trainer (d. 2003 )
May 8 - Romain Gary , writer and diplomat (d. 1980 )
May 9 - Hank Snow , country musician (d. 1999 )
May 12 - Howard K. Smith , journalist (d. 2002 )
May 13 - Joe Louis , American boxer (d. 1981 )
May 18 - Boris Christoff , Bulgarian opera singer (d. 1993 )
May 19 - Go Seigen , Go player
May 19 - Max Perutz , molecular biologist (d. 2002 )
May 22 - Vance Packard , author (d. 1996 )
May 22 - Sun Ra , jazz musician (d. 1993 )
May 28 - W. G. G. Duncan Smith , World War II pilot (d. 1996 )
May 29 - Tenzing Norgay 1986 )
May 29 - Eduard Pestel , scientist and engineer (d. 1988 )
June 3 - Roy Glenn , American actor (d. 1971 )
June 15 - Yuri Andropov , Soviet politician and General Secretary of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (d. 1984 )
June 19 - Alan Cranston , U.S. senator (d. 2000 )
June 21 - William Vickrey , economist (d. 1996 )
June 29 - Rafael Kubelik , Czech conductor (d. 1996 )
July 15 - Hammond Innes , English adventure writer (d. 1998 )
July 19 - John Kenneth Macalister , Canadian Special Operations Executive agent (d. 1944 )
July 19 - Marius Russo , Major League Baseball player (d. 2005 )
July 30 - Lord Killanin , sixth president of the International Olympic Committee (d. 1999 )
August 2 - Beatrice Straight , Academy Award -winning actress (d. 2001 )
August 17 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. , lawyer, politician (d. 1988 )
August 17 - Gabrielle Weidner , Belgian heroine of World War II (d. 1945 )
September 5 - Sor Isolina Ferré , Puerto Rican Catholic nun (d. 2000 )
September 11 - Sidney Hart , British trade unionist and religious administrator (d. 2005 )
September 12 - Desmond Llewelyn , British actor (d. 1999 )
September 12 - Janusz Zurakowski , Polish-Canadian pilot (d. 2004 )
September 15 - Creighton Williams Abrams , American military officer (d. 1974 )
September 16 - Allen Funt , host of Candid Camera (d. 1999 )
September 23 - Bethsabée de Rothschild , philanthropist and patron of dance (d. 1999 )
October 1 - Daniel J. Boorstin , American historian, writer and Librarian of Congress (d. 2004 )
October 6 - Thor Heyerdahl , Norwegian explorer (d. 2002 )
October 10 - Tommy Fine , Major League Baseball player (d. 2005 )
October 14 - Dick Durrance , American skier (d. 2004 )
October 16 - Zahir Shah , King of Afghanistan
October 21 - Martin Gardner , American writer on mathematics and games
October 27 - Dylan Thomas , Welsh poet and author (d. 1953 )
October 28 - Jonas Salk , American medical scientist, developer of polio vaccine (d. 1995 )
November 11 - Howard Fast , American novelist and television writer (d. 2003 )
November 20 - Charles Berlitz , author (d. 2003 )
November 20 - Jean-Pierre Grenier , actor (d. 2000 )
November 25 - Joe DiMaggio , American baseball player (d. 1999 )
10 - Dorothy Lamour , actress (d. 1996 )
24 - Herbert Reinecker , German writer
26 - Richard Widmark , actor
29 - Billy Tipton , jazz musician (d. 1989 )
30 - Bert Parks , singer, actor, host of Miss America Pageant (d. 1992 )
Deaths
February 24 - Joshua Chamberlain , Union Army officer
March 1 - Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto (b. 1845 )
March 6 - George Washington Vanderbilt II , businessman
April 1 - Rube Waddell , Baseball Hall of Famer
May 2 - John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll , husband of Princess Louise of the United Kingdom , aunt of King George V
June 21 - Bertha von Suttner , winner of 1905 Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1843 )
June 28 - Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (assassinated)
June 28 - Archduchess Sophie Chotek , wife of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria
July 3 - Joseph Chamberlain , British politician
August 4 - Hubertine Auclert , French feminist
August 12 - John Philip Holland , developer of the submarine (b. 1840 )
August 20 - Pope Pius X
August 30 - Aleksander Samsonov , Russian general
September 1 - Martha, the last passenger pigeon
September 3 - Albéric Magnard , composer
December 24 - John Muir , American naturalist (b. 1838 )
