March 14Birthdays & History

On this day: March 14 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 1074Battle of Mogyoród: Dukes Géza and Ladislaus defeat their cousin Solomon, King of Hungary, forcing him to flee to Hungary's western borderland.Europe
2. 1590Battle of Ivry: Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots defeat the forces of the Catholic League under Charles, Duke of Mayenne, during the French Wars of Religion.Europe
3. 1647Thirty Years' War: Bavaria, Cologne, France and Sweden sign the Truce of Ulm.Europe
4. 1663According to his own account, Otto von Guericke completes his book Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de Vacuo Spatio, detailing his experiments on vacuum and his discovery of electrostatic repulsion.Europe
5. 1674The Third Anglo-Dutch War: The Battle of Ronas Voe results in the Dutch East India Company ship Wapen van Rotterdam being captured with a death toll of up to 300 Dutch crew and soldiers.EuropeAsia
6. 1757Admiral Sir John Byng is executed by firing squad aboard HMS Monarch for breach of the Articles of War.Europe
7. 1780American Revolutionary War: Spanish forces capture Fort Charlotte in Mobile, Alabama, the last British frontier post capable of threatening New Orleans.North AmericaEurope
8. 1794Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin.North America
9. 1864Rossini's Petite messe solennelle is first performed, by twelve singers, two pianists and a harmonium player in a mansion in Paris.Europe
10. 1885The Mikado, a light opera by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, receives its first public performance at the Savoy Theatre in London.Europe
11. 1900The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing the United States currency on the gold standard.North America
12. 1901Utah governor Heber Manning Wells vetoes a bill that would have eased restrictions on polygamy.North America
13. 1903Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the first national wildlife refuge in the US, is established by President Theodore Roosevelt.North America
14. 1916Battle of Verdun: German attack captures Côte 265 at the west end of Mort-Homme but the French 75th Infantry Brigade manages to hold Côte 295 at the east end.Europe
15. 1920In the second of the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites, about 80% of the population in Zone II votes to remain part of Weimar Germany.Europe
16. 1921Six members of a group of Irish Republican Army activists known as the Forgotten Ten are hanged in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison.Europe
17. 1923Charlie Daly and three other members of the Irish Republican Army are executed by Irish Free State forces.Europe
18. 1926The El Virilla train accident, Costa Rica, kills 248 people and wounds another 93 when a train falls off a bridge over the Río Virilla between Heredia and Tibás.Latin America
19. 1931Alam Ara, India's first talking film, is released.Asia
20. 1939Slovakia declares independence under German pressure.Europe
21. 1942Anne Miller becomes the first American patient to be treated with penicillin, under the care of Orvan Hess and John Bumstead.North America
22. 1943The Holocaust: The liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto is completed.Europe
23. 1945The R.A.F. drop the Grand Slam bomb in action for the first time, on a railway viaduct near Bielefeld, Germany.Europe
24. 1951Korean War: United Nations troops recapture Seoul for the second time.Asia
25. 1961A USAF B-52 bomber carrying nuclear weapons crashes near Yuba City, California.North America
26. 1964Jack Ruby is convicted of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin who had shot and killed John F. Kennedy the previous year.North America
27. 1967The body of U.S. President John F. Kennedy is moved to a permanent burial place at Arlington National Cemetery.North America
28. 1972Sterling Airways Flight 296 crashes near Kalba, United Arab Emirates while on approach to Dubai International Airport, killing 112 people.Middle East
29. 1978The Israel Defense Forces launch Operation Litani, a seven-day campaign to invade and occupy southern Lebanon.Middle East
30. 1979Alia Royal Jordanian Flight 600 crashes at Doha International Airport, killing 45 people.Middle East
31. 1980LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007 crashes during final approach near Warsaw, Poland, killing 87 people, including a 14-man American boxing team.EuropeNorth America
32. 1982The South African government bombs the headquarters of the African National Congress in London.AfricaNorth AmericaEurope
33. 1988In the Johnson South Reef Skirmish Chinese forces defeat Vietnamese forces in an altercation over control of one of the Spratly Islands.Asia
34. 1991Escondida in Chile's Atacama Desert – which was to become the worlds most productive copper mine – is officially inaugurated.Latin America
35. 1995Norman Thagard becomes the first American astronaut to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle.North AmericaEurope
36. 2006The 2006 Chadian coup d'état attempt ends in failure.Africa
37. 2006Operation Bringing Home the Goods: Israeli troops raid an American-supervised Palestinian prison in Jericho to capture six Palestinian prisoners, including PFLP chief Ahmad Sa'adat.Middle EastNorth America
38. 2007The Nandigram violence in Nandigram, West Bengal, results in the deaths of at least 14 people.Asia
39. 2008A series of riots, protests, and demonstrations erupt in Lhasa and subsequently spread elsewhere in Tibet.Asia
40. 2017A naming ceremony for the chemical element nihonium takes place in Tokyo, with then Crown Prince Naruhito in attendance.Asia
41. 2019Cyclone Idai makes landfall near Beira, Mozambique, causing devastating floods and over 1,000 deaths.Africa
42. 2021Burmese security forces kill at least 65 civilians in the Hlaingthaya massacre.Asia

Source: Wikipedia "March 14" / CC BY-SA 4.0