December 14

2024 Calendar

December 14 is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 17 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

Up to 1900

557 - Constantinople is severely damaged by an earthquake.
1287 – The St. Lucia's flood in the Netherlands kills around 50,000 people.
1542 – Mary, Queen of Scots inherits the throne of Scotland at the age of just 6 days, following the death of her father, King James V of Scotland.
1782 – The Montgolfier brothers' first balloon makes its first test flight.
1812 - Napoleonic Wars: France's invasion of Russia ends.
1814 - War of 1812: The Royal Navy seizes control of Lake Borgne, Louisiana.
1819 – Alabama becomes the 22nd State of the United States.
1836 - The Toledo War, a boundary dispute between Ohio and the Territory of Michigan, unofficially ends.
1861 – Albert, Prince Consort, husband of Queen Victoria, dies aged 42. Following this, Queen Victoria withdraws from public life, in mourning for Prince Albert.
1896 – The Glasgow Underground Railway opens.
1900 - Max Planck presents a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law.

1901 – 2000

1902 - The first Pacific Ocean telegraph cable is laid from San Francisco to Honolulu.
1907 - Schooner (a type of sailing boat) Thomas W. Lawson runs aground and sinks off the Isles of Scilly in a gale, killing its captain and 15 seamen.
1911 – Roald Amundsen of Norway becomes the first person to reach the South Pole.
1918 – President of Portugal Sidonio Pais is assassinated.
1918 - Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse, a German prince elected by the parliament of Finland to become the country's first King, titled Vaino I, resigns without setting foot in Finland, following Germany's defeat in World War I. Finland becomes a republic.
1939 – Winter War: The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland.
1941 – World War II: Japan signs a treaty of alliance with Thailand.
1946 – The United Nations General Assembly votes to base its permanent headquarters in New York City.
1947 - The Santiago Bernabeu Stadium holds its first football match. It is the home of Real Madrid.
1955 – The UN is joined by Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Spain and Sri Lanka.
1958 - The 3rd Soviet Antarctica expedition becomes the first to access the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility.
1960 - Convention against Discrimination in Education is adopted by UNESCO
1961 - Tanganyika joins the UN.
1962 – NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.
1963 - The dam containing the Baldwin Hills reservoir bursts, killing 5 people and damaging hundreds of homes in Los Angeles, California.
1971 - Bangladesh Liberation War: Over 200 of East Pakistan's intellectuals are executed by the Pakistan army and local allies.
1972 – Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17 becomes the last person to-date to have walked on the Moon.
1981 – Arab-Israeli conflict: Israel extends its area of law into the Golan Heights.
1989 - Patricio Aylwin is elected President of Chile during Chile's return to democracy following the rule of Augusto Pinochet.
1992 - Abkhazia War: A helicopter carrying evacuees from Tkvarcheli is shot down, killing 52 people, including 25 children.
1994 – Construction begins on the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China.
1995 – Yugoslav Wars: The Dayton Agreement is signed in Paris.
1999 – Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the UN.
1999 – Torrential rains cause flash flooding in Vargas, Venezuela.

From 2001

2003 - President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf narrowly escapes an assassination attempt.
2004 – In France, the Millau Viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, is opened to traffic.
2004 - The leaders of Cuba and Venezuela create the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.
2008 – Muntadhar al-Zaidi almost strikes US President George W. Bush with two shoes, as a form of protest, at a news conference in Baghdad. This was Bush's last visit to Iraq as president.
2012 - Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: 20-year-old Adam Lanza shoots and kills his mother at his home in Newtown, Connecticut, before shooting and killing 20 children and 5 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He then turns the gun on himself.
2013 - Chinese spacecraft Chang'e 3, carrying the Yutu rover, becomes the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon since 1976.
2017 - Walt Disney Co. announces its intention to buy 21st Century Fox for 52 billion US dollars.
2017 - Scientists announce that the star Kepler-90b has the same number of known planets as the Solar System, eight.

Births

Deaths

Up to 1900

872 - Pope Adrian II (b. 792)
1460 - Guarino de Verona, Italian scholar (b. 1370)
1476 – Vlad III the Impaler, ruler of Transylvania (b. 1430)
1510 - Frederick of Saxony (b. 1473)
1542 – James V, King of Scotland (b. 1512)
1591 – Saint John of the Cross, Spanish friar and poet (b. 1542)
1651 – Pierre Dupuy, French scholar (b. 1582)
1715 - Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1636)
1741 - Charles Rollin, French historian (b. 1661)
1788 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, German composer (b. 1714)
1788 – Charles III, King of Spain (b. 1716)
1799 – George Washington, first President of the United States (b. 1732)
1806 – John Breckinridge, American politician (b. 1760)
1860 - George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1784)
1861 – Albert, Prince Consort (b. 1819)
1865 - Johan Georg Forchhammer, Danish geologist and mineralogist (b. 1794)
1873 – Louis Agassiz, Swiss geologist (b. 1807)
1878 – Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (b. 1843)

1901 – 2000

1902 - Julia Grant, First Lady of the United States (b. 1826)
1912 - Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis, English lieutenant and explorer (b. 1887)
1918 – Sidonio Pais, President of Portugal (b. 1872)
1927 - Julian Sochocki, Russian mathematician (b. 1842)
1940 - Anton Korosec, 10th Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (b. 1872)
1943 – John Harvey Kellogg, American surgeon and breakfast food manufacturer (b. 1852)
1947 – Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1867)
1947 – Edward Higgins, General, contributor to the Salvation Army (b. 1864)
1953 - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, American writer (b. 1897)
1956 – Juho Kusti Paasikivi, President of Finland (b. 1873)
1963 – Dinah Washington, American singer (b. 1924)
1963 - Erich Ollenhauer, German politician (b. 1901)
1970 - Franz Schlegelberger, German politician (b. 1876)
1974 - Walter Lippmann, American journalist (b. 1889)
1978 – Salvador de Madariaga, Spanish diplomat (b. 1886)
1984 – Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish writer (b. 1898)
1985 – Roger Maris, American baseball player (b. 1934)
1989 – Andrei Sakharov, Soviet-Russian scientist and activist (b. 1921)
1990 – Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Swiss writer (b. 1921)
1993 – Myrna Loy, American actress (b. 1905)
1994 – Orval Faubus, American politician, Governor of Arkansas (b. 1910)
1997 – Kurt Winter, Canadian musician (b. 1946)
1998 - Norman Fell, American actor (b. 1924)

From 2001

2001 – W. G. Sebald, German writer (b. 1944)
2006 – Ahmet Ertegün, Turkish-American music executive (b. 1923)
2011 – Boris Chertok, Soviet-Russian rocket scientist and engineer (b. 1912)
2011 - George Whitman, American bookstore owner (b. 1913)
2012 - Kenneth Kendall, British television journalist (b. 1924)
2012 - Adam Lanza, American gunman (b. 1992)
2013 - George Rodrigue, American artist (b. 1944)
2013 - Peter O'Toole, Irish-British actor (b. 1932)
2013 - France Roche, French actress and screenwriter (b. 1921)
2014 - Louis Alphonse Koyagialo, Congolese politician (b. 1947)
2014 - Theo Colborn, American environmentalist and academic (b. 1927)
2014 - Bess Myerson, American model (b. 1924)
2015 - Vadym Tyshchenko, Ukrainian footballer (b. 1963)
2015 - Armando Cossutta, Italian politician (b. 1926)
2015 - Lillian Vernon, German-American businesswoman (b. 1927)
2016 - Bernard Fox, Welsh-American actor (b. 1927)
2016 - Paulo Evaristo Arns, Brazilian cardinal (b. 1921)
2016 - Halfdan T. Mahler, former Director-General of the World Health Organization (b. 1923)
2016 - Jean-Paul Pier, Luxembourgian mathematician (b. 1933)
2017 - Yurizan Beltran, American pornographic actress (b. 1986)
2017 - Bob Givens, American animator (b. 1918)
2017 - Karl-Erik Nilsson, Swedish wrestler (b. 1922)
2017 - R. C. Sproul, American theologian and writer (b. 1939)
2017 - Neeraj Vora, Indian actor, screenwriter and director (b. 1963)
2017 - Marilyn Ware, American diplomat and businesswoman (b. 1943)
2017 - Lones Wigger, American sports shooter (b. 1937)
2017 - Yu Guangzhong, Taiwanese poet (b. 1928)
2018 - Matti Kassila, Finnish film director (b. 1924)
2018 - Remedios Loza, Bolivian politician (b. 1949)
2018 - Joe Osborn, American bass guitarist (b. 1937)
2018 - Edmond Simeoni, French politician (b. 1934)
2018 - Jean-Pierre Van Rossem, Belgian economist and politician; b. 1945
Twenty-nineteen - Yury Belyayev, Russian footballer; b. '34

Observances

Alabama Day
Day of the Martyred Intellectuals (Bangladesh)
Monkey Day

December 14

Events

Up to 1900

1901 – 2000

From 2001

Births

Up to 1900

1901 – 1950

1951 – 1975

From 1976

Deaths

Up to 1900

1901 – 2000

From 2001

Observances