WORLD HISTORY · 1914 日本語
Events of 1914Taisho 3 (Japan) · Year of the Tiger
What happened in 1914?
In 1914, the assassination of Austria-Hungary's heir in Sarajevo set off World War I, and Japan also declared war on Germany. At home, the volcano Sakurajima in southern Kyushu erupted massively, and Tokyo Station opened in the capital.
- Sakurajima eruption joins island to Osumi PeninsulaAsia
- Diet inquiry escalates into Siemens bribery scandalAsia
- Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated in SarajevoEurope
- World War I beginsEurope
- Britain declares war on GermanyEurope
- Panama Canal opensLatin America
- Japan declares war on GermanyAsia
- Tokyo Station opens and Keihin Line begins serviceAsia
Tap an event to jump to it in the timeline below.
1914 at a glance
| Japanese era | Taisho 3 |
|---|---|
| Chinese zodiac | Year of the Tiger |
| Age of people born in 1914 | Turn 112 in 2026 |
| Previous / next year | 1913 (Taisho 2) ／ 1915 (Taisho 4) |
| Events | 106 |
| AP World History | Unit 7 (Global Conflict) |
| AP U.S. History | Period 7 |
Famous people born in 1914
Our birthday pages list 417 people born in 1914. Here are some of them.
- Ralph EllisonBorn March 1 · turns 112 this year · American novelist and essayist whose acclaimed novel Invisible Man explored rac…
- Alec GuinnessBorn April 2 · turns 112 this year · British actor who won an Oscar for The Bridge on the River Kwai and played Obi-…
- Joe LouisBorn May 13 · turns 112 this year · American boxer nicknamed the Brown Bomber who held the world heavyweight title…
- Hedy LamarrBorn November 9 · turns 112 this year · Austrian-born Hollywood star of Algiers and Samson and Delilah who co-invented…
- Joe DiMaggioBorn November 25 · turns 112 this year · American baseball center fielder nicknamed the Yankee Clipper, famous for his r…
- Noor Inayat KhanBorn January 1 · turns 112 this year
- Jack BeatonBorn January 2 · turns 112 this year
- Doug DeitzBorn January 5 · turns 112 this year
- George ReevesBorn January 5 · turns 112 this year
- Godfrey Edward ArnoldBorn January 6 · turns 112 this year
- Kenny ClarkeBorn January 9 · turns 112 this year
- Yu Kuo-hwaBorn January 10 · turns 112 this year
Show 28 more
- Mieko KamiyaBorn January 12 · turns 112 this year
- Osa MassenBorn January 13 · turns 112 this year
- Ted Willis, Baron WillisBorn January 13 · turns 112 this year
- Harold RussellBorn January 14 · turns 112 this year
- Selahattin ÜlkümenBorn January 14 · turns 112 this year
- Hugh Trevor-RoperBorn January 15 · turns 112 this year
- Stefan BałukBorn January 15 · turns 112 this year
- Roger WagnerBorn January 16 · turns 112 this year
- Anacleto AngeliniBorn January 17 · turns 112 this year
- Howard Marion-CrawfordBorn January 17 · turns 112 this year
- Irving BrecherBorn January 17 · turns 112 this year
- Paul RoyleBorn January 17 · turns 112 this year
- William StaffordBorn January 17 · turns 112 this year
- Arno SchmidtBorn January 18 · turns 112 this year
- Vitomil ZupanBorn January 18 · turns 112 this year
- Dimitris DragatakisBorn January 22 · turns 112 this year
- William StricklandBorn January 25 · turns 112 this year
- Dürrüşehvar SultanBorn January 26 · turns 112 this year
- David WayneBorn January 30 · turns 112 this year
- John IrelandBorn January 30 · turns 112 this year
- Luc-Marie BayleBorn January 30 · turns 112 this year
- Jersey Joe WalcottBorn January 31 · turns 112 this year
- Eric KieransBorn February 2 · turns 112 this year
- Mary CarlisleBorn February 3 · turns 112 this year
- Alfred AnderschBorn February 4 · turns 112 this year
- Alan Lloyd HodgkinBorn February 5 · turns 112 this year
- William S. BurroughsBorn February 5 · turns 112 this year
- Thurl RavenscroftBorn February 6 · turns 112 this year
Events of 1914 (timeline · 106)
Tip: the PC view is best for studying
On a computer, each region has its own vertical line, so you can follow the flow of events and see what was happening in different parts of the world at the same time.
The SPT Airboat Line becomes the world's first scheduled airline to use a winged aircraft.
The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and minimum daily wage of $5 in salary plus bonuses.
The Phi Beta Sigma fraternity is founded by African-American students at Howard University in Washington D.C., United States.
The Karluk, flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, sinks after being crushed by ice.
Copyright: In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
In the Curragh incident, over 100 British Army officers threaten to resign if ordered to march against the Ulster Volunteers.
Nineteen men, women, and children participating in a strike are killed in the Ludlow Massacre during the Colorado Coalfield War.
Ypiranga incident: A German arms shipment to Mexico is intercepted by the U.S. Navy near Veracruz.
The Franck–Hertz experiment, a pillar of quantum mechanics, is presented to the German Physical Society.
The Protocol of Corfu is signed, recognising full autonomy to Northern Epirus under nominal Albanian sovereignty.
The House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Home Rule Bill for devolution in Ireland.
The ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sinks in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with the loss of 1,012 lives.
The new, and then the largest, Cunard ocean liner RMS Aquitania, 45,647 tons, sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City.
Massacre of Phocaea: Turkish irregulars slaughter 50 to 100 Greeks and expel thousands of others in an ethnic cleansing operation in the Ottoman Empire.
The Illinois Monument is dedicated at Cheatham Hill in what is now the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.
Causes of World War I: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo, beginning the July Crisis and providing the casus belli of World War I.
The funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie takes place in Vienna, six days after their assassinations in Sarajevo.
The US Navy launches the USS Nevada (BB-36) as its first standard-type battleship.
Felix Ysagun Manalo registers the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) as Iglesia ni Kristo with the government of the Philippines.
The U.S. Congress forms the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, giving official status to aircraft within the U.S. Army for the first time.
July Crisis: Austria-Hungary issues a series of demands in an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia demanding Serbia to allow the Austrians to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Serbia accepts all but one of those demands and Austria declares war on July 28.
World War I: In the culmination of the July Crisis, Austria-Hungary declares war on the Kingdom of Serbia and begins the Great War.
World War I: Germany declares war against France, while Romania declares its neutrality.
World War I: In response to the German invasion of Belgium, Belgium and the British Empire declare war on Germany. The United States declares its neutrality.
World War I: The German minelayer SS Königin Luise lays a minefield about 40 miles (64 km) off the Thames Estuary (Lowestoft). She is intercepted and sunk by the British light-cruiser HMS Amphion.
World War I: The guns of Point Nepean fort at Port Phillip Heads in Victoria (Australia) fire across the bows of the Norddeutscher Lloyd steamer SS Pfalz which is attempting to leave the Port of Melbourne in ignorance of the declaration of war and she is detained; this is said to be the first Allied shot of the War.
World War I: U-boat campaign: Two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea.
World War I: The Battle of Halen a.k.a. Battle of the Silver Helmets, a clash between large Belgian and German cavalry formations at Halen, Belgium.
World War I: France, the United Kingdom and the British Empire declare war on Austria-Hungary.
A servant of American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, sets fire to the living quarters of Wright's Wisconsin home, Taliesin, and murders seven people there.
World War I: The First Russian Army, led by Paul von Rennenkampf, enters East Prussia.
World War I: Beginning of the Battle of Cer, the first Allied victory of World War I.
German admiral Wilhelm Souchon hands over the two warships under his command to the Ottomans and becomes commander of the Turkish navy, leading later to the entry of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.
World War I: Battle of Stallupönen: The German army of General Hermann von François defeats the Russian force commanded by Paul von Rennenkampf near modern-day Nesterov, Russia.
World War I: The Battle of Charleroi, a successful German attack across the River Sambre that pre-empted a French offensive in the same area.
World War I: The British Expeditionary Force and the French Fifth Army begin their Great Retreat before the German Army.
World War I: The library of the Catholic University of Leuven is deliberately destroyed by the German Army. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes and Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts are lost.
World War I: During the retreat from Mons, the British II Corps commanded by General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien fights a vigorous and successful defensive action at Le Cateau.
World War I: The German colony of Togoland surrenders to French and British forces after a 20-day campaign. Togoland is the first German colony to fall to Allied hands in World War I.
World War I: Battle of Étreux: A British rearguard action by the Royal Munster Fusiliers during the Great Retreat.
World War I: Siege of Tsingtao: A Japanese fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Sadakichi Kato imposes a blockade along the whole coastline of German Tsingtao, initiating the Siege of Tsingtao.
World War I: The Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.
World War I: Start of the Battle of St. Quentin in which the French Fifth Army counter-attacked the invading Germans at Saint-Quentin, Aisne.
World War I: Start of the Battle of Grand Couronné, a German assault against French positions on high ground near the city of Nancy.
French composer Albéric Magnard is killed defending his estate against invading German soldiers.
Wilhelm, Prince of Albania leaves the country after just six months due to opposition to his rule.
World War I: First Battle of the Marne begins. Northeast of Paris, the French attack and defeat German forces who are advancing on the capital.
World War I: The First Battle of the Marne, which would halt the Imperial German Army's advance into France, begins.
World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the war.
World War I: The creation of the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade, the first fully mechanized unit in the British Army.
The Second Period of Russification: The teaching of the Russian language and Russian history in Finnish schools is ordered to be considerably increased as part of the forced Russification program in Finland run by Tsar Nicholas II.
World War I: Australia invades German New Guinea, defeating a German contingent at the Battle of Bita Paka.
HMAS AE1, the Royal Australian Navy's first submarine, is lost at sea with all hands near East New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
A German submarine sinks three British cruisers over a seventy-minute period, killing almost 1,500 sailors.
The United States Federal Trade Commission is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
World War I: An aircraft successfully destroys another aircraft with gunfire for the first time.
World War I: The new British battleship HMS Audacious is sunk by a minefield laid by the armed German merchant-cruiser Berlin.
World War I : the Ottoman Empire enters the war on the side of the Central Powers.
World War I: The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) departed by ship in a single convoy from Albany, Western Australia bound for Egypt.
World War I: The first British Royal Navy defeat of the war with Germany, the Battle of Coronel, is fought off of the western coast of Chile, in the Pacific, with the loss of HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth.
World War I: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles is subsequently closed.
The German colony of Kiaochow Bay and its centre at Tsingtao are captured by Japanese forces. This leaves Germany without a far east base.
Zaian War: Berber tribesmen inflict the heaviest defeat of French forces in Morocco at the Battle of El Herri.
The Joensuu City Hall, designed by Eliel Saarinen, was inaugurated in Joensuu, Finland.
Mexican Revolution: The last of U.S. forces withdraw from Veracruz, occupied seven months earlier in response to the Tampico Affair.
HMS Bulwark is destroyed by a large internal explosion with the loss of 741 men while at anchor near Sheerness.
World War I: Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading.
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition begins in an attempt to make the first land crossing of Antarctica.
World War I: A squadron of Britain's Royal Navy defeats the Imperial German East Asia Squadron in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
Lisandro de la Torre and others found the Democratic Progressive Party (Partido Demócrata Progresista, PDP) at the Hotel Savoy, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
World War I: The Serbian Army recaptures Belgrade from the invading Austro-Hungarian Army.
World War I: Admiral Franz von Hipper commands a raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby.
World War I: During the Battle of Sarikamish, Ottoman forces mistook one another for Russian troops. The following friendly fire incident leaves 2,000 Ottomans dead and many more wounded.
World War I: A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas.
Source: Wikipedia date pages ("January 1" … "December 31") / CC BY-SA 4.0. Regions are assigned by the site editors.
FAQ
What year was 1914 in the Japanese calendar?
1914 was Taisho 3 in the Japanese era system.
What Chinese zodiac animal is 1914?
1914 is the Year of the Tiger.
How old is someone born in 1914?
They turn 112 on their birthday in 2026.
What happened in 1914?
In 1914, the assassination of Austria-Hungary's heir in Sarajevo set off World War I, and Japan also declared war on Germany. At home, the volcano Sakurajima in southern Kyushu erupted massively, and Tokyo Station opened in the capital.
Dates and events are based on Wikipedia and other references. Summaries and regions are written by the site editors.