14 May - Definition and Overview

May 14 is the 134th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (135th in leap years). There are 231 days remaining.

Events

• 1264 - Battle of Lewes: Henry III of England is captured in France making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
• 1483 - Coronation of Charles VIII of France (The Kind).
• 1509 - Battle of Agnadello: In northern Italy, French forces defeat the Venetians.
• 1643 - Four year-old Louix XIV becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.
• 1787 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates begin to meet to write a new Constitution for the United States.
• 1796 - Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination.
• 1804 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begin their historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.
• 1811 - Paraguay gains independence from Spain.
• 1870 - The first game of rugby in New Zealand is played in Nelson between Nelson College and the Nelson Rugby Football Club.
• 1889 - Children's charity the NSPCC is launched in London.
• 1900 - The 1900 Summer Olympics open in Paris.
• 1913 - New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation which begins operations with a $100,000,000 donation from John D. Rockefeller.
• 1914 - The Hellenic Holocaust starts, according to an official document from Talaat Bey (Minister of the Interior) to the prefect of Smyrna.
• 1927 - Cap Arcona is launched at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg.
• 1935 - The Filipinos ratify an independence agreement.
• 1939 - Lina Medina, becomes the world's youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.
• 1940 - World War II: Rotterdam is bombed by the German Luftwaffe.
• 1940 - World War II: The Netherlands surrender to Germany.
• 1948 - Israel declares itself to be an independent state and a provisional government is established.
• 1948 - The murder of a three-year-old girl in Blackburn, England leads to the fingerprinting of more than 40,000 men in the city in an attempt to find the murderer.
• 1955 - Cold War: Eight communist bloc countries including the Soviet Union sign a mutual defence treaty called the Warsaw Pact.
• 1961 - American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob.
• 1970 - The Red Army Faction is established in Germany.
• 1973 - Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.
• 1995 - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the eleventh reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.
• 1998 - After nine years on the air, the series finale of the television sitcom Seinfeld is aired on NBC.
• 2004 - The marriage of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark and Mary Donaldson takes place in Copenhagen.
• 2004 - Piers Morgan sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror, when photographs that had been published in the newspaper of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers were proved to be fake.
• 2004 - Insurgents or terrorists in Iraq detonate a 155 mm shell containing several litres of binary precursors for sarin. The shell was designed to mix the chemicals as it spun during flight and the explosion failed to mix them properly. Although it only resulted in a small release of sarin, two United States soldiers were treated for exposure after displaying the early symptoms.

Births

• 1316 - Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1378)
• 1710 - King Adolf Frederick of Sweden (d. 1771)
• 1727 - Thomas Gainsborough, artist (d. 1788)
• 1771 - Robert Owen, social reformer (d. 1858)
• 1867 - Kurt Eisner, politician and publicist (d. 1919)
• 1869 - Friedrich Karl Kleine, physician (d. 1951)
• 1884 - Claude Dornier, aircraft designer (d. 1969)
• 1885 - Otto Klemperer, conductor (d. 1973)
• 1897 - Sidney Bechet, jazz musician (d. 1959)
• 1907 - Ayub Khan, Pakistani President (d. 1974)
• 1917 - Lou Harrison, composer (d. 2003)
• 1921 - Richard Deacon, actor
• 1922 - Franjo Tuđman, president of Croatia (d. 1999)
• 1929 - Gump Worsley, Hockey Hall of Famer
• 1931 - Alvin Lucier, composer
• 1934 - Siân Phillips, actress
• 1936 - Bobby Darin, singer (d. 1973)
• 1942 - Byron Dorgan, politician
• 1943 - Jack Bruce, bass guitarist
• 1943 - Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, president of Iceland
• 1944 - George Lucas, film director and producer
• 1952 - David Byrne, singer, songwriter, guitarist
• 1952 - Robert Zemeckis, director
• 1953 - Norodom Sihamoni, King of Cambodia
• 1961 - Tim Roth, actor
• 1946 - Eric Peterson, Canadian actor
• 1965 - Eoin Colfer, writer
• 1967 - Tony Siragusa, American football player
• 1969 - Cate Blanchett, Australian actress
• 1977 - Ada Nicodemou, Australian actress
• 1977 - Roy Halladay, baseball pitcher
• 1983 - Amber Tamblyn, actress

Deaths

• 964 - Pope John XII
• 1610 - King Henry IV of France (b. 1553)
• 1818 - Matthew Lewis, novelist (b. 1775)
• 1847 - Fanny Mendelssohn, composer and pianist, sister of Felix(b. 1805)
• 1887 - Lysander Spooner, individualist anarchist (b. 1808)
• 1889 - Volney E. Howard, American politician (b. 1809)
• 1906 - Carl Schurz, German revolutionist and American statesman (b. 1829)
• 1912 - August Strindberg, author (b. 1849)
• 1925 - H. Rider Haggard, author (b. 1856)
• 1931 - David Belasco, American theatrical producer and playwright (b. 1853)
• 1936 - Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, British general (b. 1861)
• 1945 - Heber J. Grant, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1856)
• 1957 - Marie Vassilieff, artist (b. 1884)
• 1959 - Sidney Bechet, jazz musician (b. 1897)
• 1969 - Frederick Lane, Australian swimmer (b. 1888)
• 1978 - Robert Menzies, twelfth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1894)
• 1987 - Rita Hayworth, actress (b. 1918)
• 1988 - Willem Drees, Dutch prime-minister (b. 1886)
• 1997 - Harry Blackstone Jr., magician
• 1998 - Frank Sinatra, singer, actor (b. 1915)
• 2000 - Obuchi Keizo, Japanese prime minister (b. 1937)
• 2003 - Dave DeBusschere, NBA basketball player (b. 1940)
• 2003 - Dame Wendy Hiller, British actress (b. 1912)
• 2003 - Robert Stack, actor (b. 1919)

Holidays and observances

• Paraguay - National Day
• Israel - National Day (the date of the National holiday is determined by the Jewish Calendar).
• Mother's Day - 2000, 2006

May 13 - May 15 - April 14 - June 14 -- listing of all days