April 14 Events

43 BC - Battle of Forum Gallorum. Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar's assassin Decimus Junius Brutus in Mutina, defeats the forces of the consul Pansa, who is killed.
69 - Vitellius, commander of the Rhine armies, defeats Emperor Otho in the Battle of Bedriacum and seizes the throne.
1028 - Henry III, son of Conrad, was elected king of the Germans.
1205 - Battle of Adrianople between Bulgars and Crusaders.
1450 - Battle of Formigny. French attack and nearly annihilate English, ending English domination in northern France.
1471 - In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeated the Lancastrians under Warwick at the battle of Barnet; the Earl of Warwick was killed and Edward IV resumed the throne.
1632 - Battle of Rain, Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
1699 - Sikhism. Birth of the Sikh religion in Northern India in accordance with the Nanakshahi Calender.
1775 - The first abolition society in the North America was established. The "Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage" was organized in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
1828 - Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.
1846 - The Donner Party of pioneers departs Springfield, Illinois, for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship, cannibalism, and survival.
1849 - Hungary declared itself independent of Austria with Louis Kossuth as its leader.
1860 - The first Pony Express rider reaches Sacramento, California.
1864 - Battle of Dybbøl: A Prussian-Austrian army defeats Denmark and gains control of Schleswig. Denmark surrenders the province in the following peace settlement.
1865 - Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth; he dies the next day.
1890 - The Pan-American Union was founded by the First International Conference of American States at their meeting in Washington. Known originally as the International Bureau of American Republics, William Elleroy Curtis became its first director.
1894 - Thomas Edison demonstrates the kinetoscope, a device for peep-show viewing using photographs that flip in sequence, a precursor to movies.
1910 - President William Howard Taft becomes the first president to throw out the first baseball on opening day.
1912 - The British ocean liner RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage, plunging beneath the waves and taking with it over 1,500 lives at about 2:20 a.m. the following morning.
1915 - The Turks invaded Armenia.
1927 - The first Volvo 'Rolls' off the assembly line in Gothenburg, Sweden.
1931 - Spanish Cortes deposes King Alfonso XIII and proclaims the 2nd Spanish Republic.
1935 - "Black Sunday", the worst dust storm of the Dust Bowl.
1935 - Babe Ruth played his first National League game in Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. He was playing for the Boston Braves, not his old team the Red Sox, in this, his last year of pro ball in the major leagues. In this season, Ruth played 28 games, getting 13 hits and six home runs, before retiring.
1940 - Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway, occupying key points, preparatory to a larger force arriving two days later.
1941 - World War II: The Ustashe, a Croatian far-right organisation that pursued Nazi and fascist policies, was put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers after the April 6 invasion of Yugoslavia during Operation Castigo.
1944 - Huge explosion rocks the Bombay harbour killing 300 and causing a loss of 20 million pounds at that time. See: Bombay Explosion (1944).
1956 - Videotape is first demonstrated at the 1956 NARTB (now NAB) convention in Chicago, Illinois. It was the demonstation of the first practical and commercially successful format called 2" Quadruplex.
1962 - Georges Pompidou becomes Prime Minister of France.
1964 - A Delta rocket's third-stage motor prematurely ignites in an assembly room at Cape Canaveral, killing 3.
1965 - In Cold Blood killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, convicted of murdering four members of the Herbert Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, are executed by hanging at the Kansas State Penitentiary For Men in Lansing, Kansas.
1969 - At the Academy Awards, a tie between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand results in the two sharing the Best Actress Oscar; Hepburn also becomes the only actress to win three Best Actress Oscars.
1970 - One of Apollo 13's oxygen tanks explodes, causing a cancelled moon mission. The explosion occurred on April 13th in several time zones.
1981 - The Space Shuttle Columbia passes its first test flight.
1986 - In retaliation for the April 5 bombing of the La Belle Discotheque in West Berlin in which two U.S. servicemen were killed, Ronald Reagan ordered major bombing raids against Tripoli and Benghazi, in Libya, which killed 60 people.
1986 - 2.2 lb (1 kg) hailstones fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92. These are the heaviest hailstones ever recorded.
1988 - USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. U.S. retaliates against Iran on April 18 with Operation Praying Mantis, the world's largest naval battle since World War II.
2003 - Human Genome Project successfully completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to 99.99% accuracy.
2003 - Jean Charest's Parti libéral du Québec defeats Bernard Landry and the Parti Québécois in Quebec's general elections.
2003 - The body of Laci Peterson is found in California.

April 14 Births

1336 - Emperor Go-Kogon of Japan (d. 1374)
1527 - Abraham Ortelius, Flemish cartographer and geographer (d. 1598)
1572 - Adam Tanner, Austrian mathematician and philosopher (d. 1632)
1578 - King Philip III of Spain (d. 1621)
1629 - Christiaan Huygens, Dutch mathematician & astronomer (d. 1695)
1714 - Adam Gib, Scottish religious leader (d. 1788)
1741 - Emperor Momozono of Japan (d. 1762)
1788 - David G. Burnet, interim president of the Republic of Texas (d. 1870)
1827 - Augustus Pitt-Rivers, English archaeologist (d. 1900)
1866 - Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher (d. 1936)
1868 - Peter Behrens, German architect and designer (d. 1940)
1872 - Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Islamic scholar and translator (d. 1953)
1886 - Ernst Robert Curtius, Alsatian philologist (d. 1956)
1897 - Claire Windsor, American actress (d. 1972)
1902 - Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Ukrainian rabbi (d. 1994)
1904 - Sir John Gielgud, English actor (d. 2000)
1907 - François Duvalier, Haitian politician (d. 1971)
1917 - Marvin Miller, American labor activist
1921 - Thomas Schelling, American economist, Bank of Sweden Prize winner
1925 - Abel Muzorewa, Prime Minster of Zimbabwe
1925 - Gene Ammons, American jazz saxophonist (d. 1974)
1925 - Rod Steiger, American actor (d. 2002)
1930 - Bradford Dillman, American actor
1933 - Morton Subotnick, American composer
1935 - Erich von Däniken, Swiss writer
1936 - Kenneth Mars, American actor
1936 - Frank Serpico, American policeman
1935 - Loretta Lynn, American singer
1941 - Julie Christie, British actress
1941 - Pete Rose, baseball player
1942 - Valeriy Brumel, Russian athlete (d. 2003)
1942 - Valentin Lebedev, cosmonaut
1945 - Ritchie Blackmore, English guitarist
1949 - John Shea, American actor
1951 - Julian Lloyd Webber, English cellist and composer
1960 - Brad Garrett, American actor
1961 - Robert Carlyle, British actor
1964 - Brian Adams, American professional wrestler
1966 - David Justice, baseball player
1966 - Greg Maddux, baseball player
1967 - Jeff Jarrett, American professional wrestler
1968 - Anthony Michael Hall, American actor
1970 - Shizuka Kudo, Japanese singer
1973 - Adrien Brody, American actor
1974 - Da Brat, American rapper
1975 - Amy Dumas, American professional wrestler
1977 - Sarah Michelle Gellar, American actress
1980 - Ben Wells, American actor
1981 - Mary Castro, American model and actress
1983 - Simon Burnett, British swimmer
1983 - James McFadden, Scottish footballer

April 14 Deaths

1132 - Prince Mstislav of Kiev (b. 1076)
1279 - Duke Boleslaus of Greater Poland
1322 - Bartholomew de Badlesmere, 1st Lord Badlesmere, English soldier (b. 1275)
1345 - Richard Aungerville, English bishop and writer (b. 1287)
1471 - Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, English kingmaker (b. 1428)
1574 - Louis of Nassau, Dutch general (killed in battle) (b. 1538)
1578 - James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, consort of Mary I of Scotland
1599 - Henry Wallop, English statesman
1662 - William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, English statesman (b. 1582)
1682 - Avvakum, Russian priest and writer (b. 1621)
1716 - Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington, British admiral
1721 - Michel Chamillart, French statesman (b. 1652)
1759 - George Frideric Handel, German composer (b. 1685)
1785 - William Whitehead, English writer (b. 1715)
1792 - Maximilian Hell, Slovakian astronomer (b. 1720)
1912 - Henri Brisson, French statesman (b. 1835)
1914 - Hubert Bland, English co-founder of the Fabian Society (b. 1855)
1917 - Ludovich Lazarus Zamenhof, Polish creator of Esperanto (b. 1859)
1925 - John Singer Sargent, English artist (b. 1856)
1930 - Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russian writer (b. 1893)
1935 - Amalie Emmy Noether, German mathematician (b. 1882)
1964 - Rachel Carson, American writer and environmentalist (b. 1907)
1968 - Al Benton, baseball player (b. 1911)
1975 - Fredric March, American actor (b. 1897)
1986 - Simone de Beauvoir, French feminist writer (b. 1908)
1995 - Burl Ives, American singer and actor (b. 1909)
1999 - Ellen Corby, American actress (b. 1911)
1999 - Anthony Newley, British actor and singer (b. 1931)
2000 - Phil Katz, American computer programmer (b. 1962)
2001 - Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japanese director (b. 1927)

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