Your American History Reference Guide! - May 14
May 14
May 14 is the 134th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (135th in leap years ). There are 231 days remaining.
Events
1264 - Battle of Lewes : Henry III of England is captured in France making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England .
1483 - Coronation of Charles VIII of France (The Kind).
1509 - Battle of Agnadello : In northern Italy , French forces defeat the Venetians .
1643 - Four year-old Louix XIV becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Louis XIII .
1747 - British fleet under Admiral George Anson defeats French at first battle of Cape Finisterre .
1787 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , delegates begin to meet to write a new Constitution for the United States .
1796 - Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination .
1804 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begin their historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River .
1811 - Paraguay gains independence from Spain .
1861 - The Canellas meteorite, an 859-gram chondrite-type meteorite strikes the earth near Barcelona, Spain .
1870 - The first game of rugby in New Zealand is played in Nelson between Nelson College and the Nelson Rugby Football Club.
1889 - The children's charity the NSPCC is launched in London .
1900 - The 1900 Summer Olympics open in Paris .
1913 - New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation , which begins operations with a $100 million donation from John D. Rockefeller .
1914 - The Hellenic Holocaust starts, according to an official document from Talaat Bey (Minister of the Interior) to the prefect of Smyrna .
1927 - Cap Arcona is launched at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg .
1929 - Wilfred Rhodes takes his 4000th first-class wicket during a performance of 9 for 39 at Leyton.
1935 - The Filipinos ratify an independence agreement.
1939 - Lina Medina , becomes the world's youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.
1940 - World War II : Rotterdam is bombed by the German Luftwaffe .
1940 - World War II: The Netherlands surrender to Germany .
1948 - Israel declares itself to be an independent state and a provisional government is established.
1948 - The murder of a three-year-old girl in Blackburn , England leads to the fingerprinting of more than 40,000 men in the city in an attempt to find the murderer.
1955 - Cold War : Eight communist bloc countries including the Soviet Union sign a mutual defence treaty called the Warsaw Pact .
1961 - American civil rights movement : Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob.
1970 - The Red Army Faction is established in Germany.
1973 - Skylab , the United States ' first space station , is launched.
1995 - Tenzin Gyatso , the 14th Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the eleventh reincarnation of the Panchen Lama .
1998 - After nine years on the air, the series finale of the television sitcom Seinfeld is aired on NBC .
2004 - The marriage of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark and Mary Donaldson takes place in Copenhagen .
2004 - Piers Morgan is fired as editor of the Daily Mirror , when photographs that had been published in the newspaper of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers were proved to be fake.
2004 - Insurgents or terrorists in Iraq detonate a 155 mm shell containing several liters of binary precursors for sarin . The shell was designed to mix the chemicals as it spun during flight and the explosion failed to mix them properly. Although it only resulted in a small release of sarin, two U.S. soldiers are treated for exposure after displaying the early symptoms .
Births
1316 - Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1378 )
1553 - Margaret of Valois , queen of Henry IV of France (d. 1615 )
1710 - King Adolf Frederick of Sweden (d. 1771 )
1727 - Thomas Gainsborough , artist (d. 1788 )
1771 - Robert Owen , social reformer (d. 1858 )
1867 - Kurt Eisner , politician and publicist (d. 1919 )
1869 - Friedrich Karl Kleine , physician (d. 1951 )
1884 - Claude Dornier , aircraft designer (d. 1969 )
1885 - Otto Klemperer , conductor (d. 1973 )
1897 - Sidney Bechet , jazz musician (d. 1959 )
1907 - Ayub Khan , Pakistani President (d. 1974 )
1917 - Lou Harrison , composer (d. 2003 )
1921 - Richard Deacon , actor
1922 - Franjo Tuđman , president of Croatia (d. 1999 )
1929 - Gump Worsley , Hockey Hall of Famer
1931 - Alvin Lucier , composer
1934 - Siân Phillips , actress
1936 - Bobby Darin , singer (d. 1973 )
1942 - Byron Dorgan , politician
1943 - Jack Bruce , bass guitarist
1943 - Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson , president of Iceland
1944 - George Lucas , film director and producer
1948 - Bob Woolmer , cricket coach
1952 - David Byrne , singer, songwriter, guitarist
1952 - Robert Zemeckis , director
1953 - Norodom Sihamoni , King of Cambodia
1961 - Tim Roth , actor
1946 - Eric Peterson , Canadian actor
1965 - Eoin Colfer , writer
1967 - Tony Siragusa , American football player
1969 - Cate Blanchett , Australian actress
1977 - Ada Nicodemou , Australian actress
1977 - Roy Halladay , baseball pitcher
1983 - Amber Tamblyn , actress
Deaths
964 - Pope John XII
1610 - King Henry IV of France (b. 1553 )
1643 - King Louis XIII of France (b. 1601 )
1818 - Matthew Lewis , novelist (b. 1775 )
1847 - Fanny Mendelssohn , composer and pianist, sister of Felix (b. 1805 )
1887 - Lysander Spooner , individualist anarchist (b. 1808 )
1889 - Volney E. Howard , American politician (b. 1809 )
1906 - Carl Schurz , German revolutionist and American statesman (b. 1829 )
1912 - August Strindberg , author (b. 1849 )
1925 - H. Rider Haggard , author (b. 1856 )
1931 - David Belasco , American theatrical producer and playwright (b. 1853 )
1936 - Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby , British general (b. 1861 )
1945 - Heber J. Grant , president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1856 )
1957 - Marie Vassilieff , artist (b. 1884 )
1959 - Sidney Bechet , jazz musician (b. 1897 )
1969 - Frederick Lane , Australian swimmer (b. 1888 )
1978 - Robert Menzies , twelfth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1894 )
1987 - Rita Hayworth , actress (b. 1918 )
1988 - Willem Drees , Dutch prime-minister (b. 1886 )
1997 - Harry Blackstone Jr. , magician
1998 - Frank Sinatra , singer, actor (b. 1915 )
2000 - Obuchi Keizo , Japanese prime minister (b. 1937 )
2003 - Dave DeBusschere , NBA basketball player (b. 1940 )
2003 - Dame Wendy Hiller , British actress (b. 1912)
2003 - Robert Stack , actor (b. 1919 )
Holidays and observances
External links
May 13 - May 15 - April 14 - June 14 -- listing of all days