📅 On This Day in History

What Happened on March 14th in History

30 historical events on this date

1903

Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the first national wildlife refuge in the US, is established by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge is a United States National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), and part of the Everglades Headwaters NWR complex, located just off the western coast of Orchid Island,...

1916

Battle of Verdun: German attack captures CĂ´te 265 at the west end of Mort-Homme but the French 75th Infantry Brigade manages to hold CĂ´te 295 at the east end.

The Battle of Verdun was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north of Verdun....

1920

In the second of the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites, about 80% of the population in Zone II votes to remain part of Weimar Germany.

The Schleswig plebiscites were two plebiscites, organized according to section XII, articles 109 to 114 of the Treaty of Versailles of 28 June 1919, in order to determine the future border between...

1921

Six members of a group of Irish Republican Army activists known as the Forgotten Ten are hanged in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various militant organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dominantly Catholic and...

1923

Charlie Daly and three other members of the Irish Republican Army are executed by Irish Free State forces.

Charlie Daly, born in Castlemaine, County Kerry, was the second son of Con. W. Daly, of Knockaneacoolteen, Firies, County Kerry. He went to school, first to Ballyfinnane National School, and later...

1926

The El Virilla train accident, Costa Rica, kills 248 people and wounds another 93 when a train falls off a bridge over the RĂ­o Virilla between Heredia and TibĂĄs.

The El Virilla train accident occurred in Costa Rica on 14 March 1926, when an overcrowded train carrying mostly farmers and laborers derailed while crossing a bridge across the Virilla River...

1931

Alam Ara, India's first talking film, is released.

Alam Ara is a 1931 Indian historical fantasy film directed and produced by Ardeshir Irani. It revolves around a king and his two wives, Navbahaar and Dilbahaar, who are childless; soon, a fakir...

1939

Slovakia declares independence under German pressure.

Slovakia, officially the (First) Slovak Republic, and from 14 March until 21 July 1939 officially known as the Slovak State, was a partially recognized client state of Nazi Germany which existed...

1942

Anne Miller becomes the first American patient to be treated with penicillin, under the care of Orvan Hess and John Bumstead.

Penicillins are a group of β-lactam antibiotics originally obtained from Penicillium moulds, principally P. chrysogenum and P. rubens. Most penicillins in clinical use are synthesised by P....

1943

The Holocaust: The liquidation of the KrakĂłw Ghetto is completed.

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million...

1945

The R.A.F. drop the Grand Slam bomb in action for the first time, on a railway viaduct near Bielefeld, Germany.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918...

1951

Korean War: United Nations troops recapture Seoul for the second time.

The Korean War was an armed conflict fought on the Korean Peninsula between North Korea and South Korea and their allies. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea...

1961

A USAF B-52 bomber carrying nuclear weapons crashes near Yuba City, California.

The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is a part of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and is one of the six armed forces and...

1964

Jack Ruby is convicted of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin who had shot and killed John F. Kennedy the previous year.

Jack Leon Ruby was an American nightclub owner. He killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of John F. Kennedy.

1967

The body of U.S. President John F. Kennedy is moved to a permanent burial place at Arlington National Cemetery.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43 years,...

1972

Sterling Airways Flight 296 crashes near Kalba, United Arab Emirates while on approach to Dubai International Airport, killing 112 people.

On 14 March 1972, Sterling Airways Flight 296 crashed into a mountain ridge on approach to Dubai in Trucial State of Fujariah, Trucial States. Flight 296 was a charter flight from Colombo to...

1978

The Israel Defense Forces launch Operation Litani, a seven-day campaign to invade and occupy southern Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces, alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym Tzahal (צה״ל), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli...

1979

Alia Royal Jordanian Flight 600 crashes at Doha International Airport, killing 45 people.

Alia Royal Jordanian Flight 600 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Marka International Airport, Jordan, to Seeb International Airport, Muscat, Oman, via Doha International Airport...

1980

LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007 crashes during final approach near Warsaw, Poland, killing 87 people, including a 14-man American boxing team.

LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007 was an Ilyushin Il-62 that crashed near Warsaw-Okecie Airport in Poland, on 14 March 1980, as the crew aborted a landing and attempted to go-around, killing all 77...

1982

The South African government bombs the headquarters of the African National Congress in London.

The London offices of the African National Congress (ANC) were wrecked by an 11-kilogram (24 lb) bomb which exploded against the rear wall at 9 am on 14 March 1982. Windows up to 400 yd (370 m) away...

1988

In the Johnson South Reef Skirmish Chinese forces defeat Vietnamese forces in an altercation over control of one of the Spratly Islands.

The Johnson South Reef skirmish took place on 14 March 1988 between military forces of China and Vietnam, on the Johnson South Reef in the Union Banks region of the Spratly Islands, in the South...

1991

Escondida in Chile's Atacama Desert – which was to become the worlds most productive copper mine – is officially inaugurated.

Escondida is a large open-pit copper mine at 3,100 m (10,200 ft) elevation in the Atacama Desert in Antofagasta Region, Chile. It has for decades been one of world's most productive copper mines and...

1995

Norman Thagard becomes the first American astronaut to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle.

Norman Earl Thagard is an American scientist and former U.S. Marine Corps officer and naval aviator and NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of five space flights and on March 14, 1995, he became the...

2006

The 2006 Chadian coup d'ĂŠtat attempt ends in failure.

The 2006 Chadian coup attempt was an attempted coup d'ĂŠtat against Chadian President Idriss DĂŠby that was foiled on the night of March 14, 2006.

2006

Operation 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.

Operation Bringing Home the Goods was a raid launched by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on March 14, 2006, on a Palestinian prison in Jericho. The prison held several prisoners wanted by Israel,...

2007

The Nandigram violence in Nandigram, West Bengal, results in the deaths of at least 14 people.

Violence erupted in Nandigram, West Bengal, India, in 2007 due to the land acquisition for a project taken up by the Left Front-led Government of West Bengal to create a chemical hub, a type of...

2008

A series of riots, protests, and demonstrations erupt in Lhasa and subsequently spread elsewhere in Tibet.

The 2008 Tibetan unrest, also referred to as the 2008 Tibetan uprising in Tibetan media, was a series of protests and demonstrations that initially occurred over the Chinese Communist Party's...

2017

A naming ceremony for the chemical element nihonium takes place in Tokyo, with then Crown Prince Naruhito in attendance.

Nihonium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Nh and atomic number 113. It is extremely radioactive: its most stable known isotope, nihonium-286, has a half-life of about 10 seconds. In...

2019

Cyclone Idai makes landfall near Beira, Mozambique, causing devastating floods and over 1,000 deaths.

Intense Tropical Cyclone Idai was one of the costliest and deadliest tropical cyclones on record to affect Africa and the Southern Hemisphere. The long-lived storm caused catastrophic damage, and a...

2021

Burmese security forces kill at least 65 civilians in the Hlaingthaya massacre.

The Hlaingthaya massacre was a mass killing of civilians on 14 March 2021, in Hlaingthaya Township, Yangon, Myanmar. During the massacre, Myanmar Army troops and Myanmar Police Force officers killed...