April 14 is the 104th day of the year (105th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 261 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
- Ambedkar Jayanti (India)
- Black Day (South Korea)
- Christian feast day:
- Dhivehi Language Day (Maldives)
- Day of the Georgian language (Georgia)
- Day of Mologa (Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia)
- N’Ko Alphabet Day (Mande speakers)
- New Year festivals in South and Southeast Asian cultures, celebrated on the siderealvernal equinox:
- Bohag Bihu/Rongali Bihu (Assamese New Year), (Assam Valley)
- Pohela Boishakh (Bengali New Year), (Bangladesh and West Bengal)
- Thingyan (Burmese New Year)
- Cambodian New Year (Chol Chnam Thmey), most commonly celebrated on April 13
- Songkran (Lao) / Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Year), generally celebrated from 13 to 15 April
- Maithili New Year, Jude-Sheetal in Mithila and Nepal
- Vishu (Malayali New Year), (Kerala)
- Vikram Samvat / Vaishak Ek (Nepali New Year)
- Maha Vishuva Sankranti (Oriya New Year), Odisha)
- Aluth Avurudda (Sinhalese New Year), (Sri Lanka)
- Puthandu (Tamil New Year), ([Tamil Nadu]], Sri Lanka, Singapore)
- Songkran (Thailand) (New Year), celebrated from 13 to 15 April
- Bisu (Tuluva New Year), (Karnataka)
- The first day of Takayama Spring Festival (Takayama, Gifu, Japan)
- Vaisakhi (Punjab region)
- Youth Day (Angola)
History
In 43 BC, Battle of Forum Gallorum: Mark Antony, besieging Caesar’s assassin Decimus Brutus in Mutina, defeats the forces of the consul Pansa, but is then immediately defeated by the army of the other consul, Hirtius.
In AD 69, Vitellius, commander of the Rhine armies, defeats Emperor Otho in the Battle of Bedriacum and seizes the throne.
In AD 70, Siege of Jerusalem: Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, surrounds the Jewish capital, with four Roman legions. The siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Judaea. Following a brutal five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city and the Second Jewish Temple.
In 193, Septimius Severus is proclaimed Roman Emperor by the army in Illyricum (in the Balkans).
In 966, After his marriage to the Christian Dobrawa of Bohemia, the pagan ruler of the Polans, Mieszko I, converts to Christianity, an event considered to be the founding of the Polish state.
In 972, Marriage of Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor, to Theophano, Princess of the Eastern Roman Empire
In 1028, Henry III, son of Conrad, is elected king of the Germans
In 1205, Battle of Adrianople between Bulgarians and Crusaders.
In 1291, A body of Templars make a night raid on the Muslem camp at the Siege of Acre. They are all killed.
In 1294, Temür, grandson of Kublai, is elected Khagan of the Mongols and Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty with the reigning titles Oljeitu and Chengzong.
In 1341, Sack of Saluzzo (Italy) by Italian-Angevine troops under Manfred V of Saluzzo.
In 1434, The foundation stone of Cathedral St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes, France is laid.
In 1435, St. Mary’s College, Oxford, England, opens
In 1543, Bartoleme Ferrelo returns to Spain after discovering the San Francisco Bay area
In 1611, The word “telescope” was first used by Prince Federico Cesi.
In 1639, Imperial forces are defeated by the Swedes at the Battle of Chemnitz. The Swedish victory prolongs the Thirty Year’s War and allows them to advance into Bohemia.
In 1660, King Charles II of England issues a General Amnesty to all save those whom Parliament would exempt.
In 1699, Khalsa: The Sikh Religion was formalised as the Khalsa – the brotherhood of Warrior-Saints – by Guru Gobind Singh in Northern India, in accordance with the Nanakshahi calendar.
In 1715, The Yamasee War begins in South Carolina. The Yamasee War was a conflict between British settlers of colonial South Carolina and various Native American Indian tribes, including the Yamasee, Muscogee, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Catawba, Apalachee, Apalachicola, Yuchi, Savannah River Shawnee, Congaree, Waxhaw, Pee Dee, Cape Fear, Cheraw, and others. Some of the Native American Indian groups played a minor role while others launched attacks throughout South Carolina in an attempt to destroy the colony. They killed hundreds of colonists and destroyed many settlements. Traders “in the field” were killed throughout what is now southeastern United States. Abandoning settled frontiers, people fled to Charles Town, where starvation set in as supplies ran low. The survival of the South Carolina colony was in question during 1715. The tide turned in early 1716 when the Cherokee sided with the colonists against the Creek, their traditional enemy. The last of South Carolina’s major Native American foes withdrew from the conflict in 1717, bringing a fragile peace to the colony. The Yamasee War was one of the most disruptive and transformational conflicts of colonial America. It was one of the American Indians’ most serious challenges to European dominance. For over a year the colony faced the possibility of annihilation. About 7% of South Carolina’s white citizenry was killed, making the war bloodier than King Philip’s War, which is often cited as North America’s bloodiest war involving Native Americans. The geopolitical situation for British, Spanish, and French colonies, as well as the Indian groups of the southeast, was radically altered. The war marks the end of the early colonial era of the American South. The Yamasee War and its aftermath contributed to the emergence of new Indian confederated nations, such as the Muscogee Creek and Catawba.
In 1759, George Frideric Handel, German-English composer (b. 1685) dies. He was a German-born Baroque composer famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Born in a family indifferent to music, Handel received critical training in Halle, Hamburg and Italy before settling in London (1712), and became a naturalized British subject in 1727. By then he was strongly influenced by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition. Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. In 1737 he had a physical breakdown, changed direction creatively and addressed the middle class. As Alexander’s Feast (1736) was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works. After his success with Messiah (1742) he never performed an Italian opera again. Handel was only partly successful with his performances of English oratorio on mythical and biblical themes, but when he arranged a performance of Messiah to benefit London’s Foundling Hospital (1750) the criticism ended. It has been said that the passion of Handel’s oratorios is an ethical one, and that they are hallowed not by liturgical dignity but by moral ideals of humanity. Almost blind, and having lived in England for almost fifty years, he died in 1759, a respected and rich man. His funeral was given full state honours, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Handel is regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era, with works such as Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks and Messiah remaining popular. One of his four Coronation Anthems, Zadok the Priest (1727), composed for the coronation of George II of Great Britain, has been performed at every subsequent British coronation, traditionally during the sovereign’s anointing. Handel composed more than forty operas in over thirty years, and since the late 1960s, with the revival of baroque music and original instrumentation, interest in Handel’s operas has grown.
In 1775, The first abolition society in North America is established. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush. The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In Colonial America, a few German Quakers issued the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, which marks the beginning of the American abolitionist movement. Before the Revolutionary War, evangelical colonists were the primary advocates for the opposition to slavery and the slave trade, doing so on humanitarian grounds. James Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony of Georgia, originally tried to prohibit slavery upon its founding, a decision that was eventually reversed.
In 1816, Bussa, a slave in British-ruled Barbados, leads a slave rebellion and is killed. For this, he is remembered as the first national hero of Barbados.
In 1818, the U.S. Army Medical Corps was established.
In 1828, the first edition of Noah Webster’s “American Dictionary of the English Language” was published.
In 1846, The Donner Party of pioneers departs Springfield, Illinois, for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship, cannibalism, and survival.
In 1849, Hungary declares itself independent of Austria with Lajos Kossuth as its leader.
In 1860, The first Pony Express rider reaches Sacramento, California.
In 1861, Formal Union surrender of Ft Sumter.
In 1861, The flag of the Confederacy was raised over Fort Sumter, S. C., as Union troops there surrendered in the early days of the Civil War.
In 1862, The Union Army begins the Peninsular Campaign aimed at Richmond, Virginia.
In 1863, The continuous-roll printing press was patented by William Bullock.
In 1865, President Lincoln and his wife Mary see the play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater. At 10:13 p.m., during the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth shot the president in the head. Doctors attended to the president in the theater, then moved him to a house across the street. He never regained consciousness and died the following morning.
In 1865, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked in his home by Lewis Powell.
In 1868, South Carolina voters approved the constitution, 70,758 to 27,228.
In 1869, The airbrake is patented by George Westinghouse, Jr. in Schenectady, New York.
In 1871, Canada sets denominations of currency as dollars, cents, & mills.
In 1881, The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight is fought in El Paso, Texas.
In 1887, Start of Sherlock Holmes adventure “Reigate Squires” (BG).
In 1890, The Pan American Union was founded by the First International Conference of American States at their meeting in Washington.
In 1894, The first ever commercial motion picture house opened in New York City using ten Kinetoscopes, a device for peep-show viewing of films.
In 1900, French President Emile Loubet opened the Paris International Exhibition; it covered 547 acres and was the biggest of its kind in European history.
In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt denounced “muckrakers” in US press.
In 1906, The Azusa Street Revival opens and will launch Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement.
In 1909, A massacre is organized by Ottoman Empire against Armenian population of Cilicia.
In 1912, Frederick Rodman Law was a stunt man and on this day, he became the first man to intentionally jump from the Brooklyn Bridge in New York without intending to take his own life. He was OK after the leap.
In 1912, The supposedly unsinkable British liner, the largest passenger liner afloat, the RMS Titanic, collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage and began sinking. Many onboard refused to believe the ship was going down. Rescue ships saved 706 survivors, but 1,517 sunk with the ship at 2:20 the following morning. And no, Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t on board…he wasn’t even born yet!
In 1914, The non-skid tire pattern was patented by Stacy G. Carkhuff.
In 1918, Douglas Campbell became the first American ace pilot when he shot down his fifth German enemy aircraft.
In 1927, The first Volvo car premieres in Gothenburg, Sweden.
In 1928, The Bremen, a German Junkers W33 type aircraft, reaches Greenly Island, Canada – the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west.
In 1931, The Spanish Cortes deposes King Alfonso XIII and proclaims the Second Spanish Republic.
In 1931, First edition of the Highway Code published in Great Britain.
In 1935, “Black Sunday Storm“, the worst dust storm of the U.S. Dust Bowl.
In 1939, The novel The Grapes of Wrath, by American author John Steinbeck is first published by the Viking Press. It was made into a motion picture starring Henry Fonda.
In 1940, World War II: Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway in preparation for a larger force to arrive two days later.
In 1941, World War II: German general Erwin Rommel attacks Tobruk.
In 1942, Malta receives the George Cross for its gallantry. The George Cross was given by King George VI himself and is now an emblem on the Maltese national flag.
In 1944, Bombay Explosion: A massive explosion in Bombay harbor kills 300 and causes economic damage valued then at 20 million pounds.
In 1945, Osijek, Croatia, is liberated from fascist occupation.
In 1948, A flash of light is observed in the crater Plato on the Moon.
In 1956, In Chicago, Illinois, videotape is first demonstrated.
In 1958, The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.
In 1960, First underwater launching of Polaris rocket.
In 1961, US element 103 (Lawrencium) discovered.
In 1966, President JOHNSON arrives in Mexico City, on his 1st trip to a foreign country since becoming President.
In 1967, Gnassingbé Eyadéma overthrows President of Togo Nicolas Grunitzky and installs himself as the new president, a title he would hold for the next 38 years
In 1969, At the U.S. Academy Awards there is a tie for the Academy Award for Best Actress between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand.
In 1981, The first test flight of America’s first operational space shuttle, the Columbia, ended successfully as the orbiter landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
In 1983, President Reagan denied he was trying to overthrow the leftist Nicaraguan government.
In 1984, “Saturday Night Live” host George McGovern solicits donations for yet another presidential campaign and winds up introducing musical guest Madness with help from Clara “Where’s the Beef” Peller.
In 1985, Jack C. Burcham became the fifth person to receive the “Jarvik 7” permanent artificial heart. However, he died 10 days later at Humana Hospital Audubon in Louisville, Ky.
In 1986, Americans got first word of the U.S. air raid on Libya (because of the time difference, it was the early morning of April 15th where the attack occurred.) U.S. warplanes struck Libya in the biggest U.S. air strike since the Vietnam War. Libya claimed 40 of its people were killed. It was in retaliation for a deadly terrorist explosion five days earlier at a German disco frequented by American soldiers.
In 1986, Desmond Tutu elected Anglican archbishop of Capetown.
In 1987, Turkey asks to join European market.
In 1987, Secretary of State George P. Shultz met at the Kremlin with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who proposed the elimination of short-range nuclear missiles in East Germany and Czechoslovakia as part of an arms control agreement with the United States.
In 1988, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and the Soviet Union signed agreements providing for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan and creation of a nonaligned Afghan state.
In 1989, Former winery worker Ramon Salcido went on a rampage in Sonoma County, California, killing seven people, including his wife and four daughters; he was later sentenced to death.
In 1989, Testimony concluded in the Iran-Contra trial of former National Security Council staff member Oliver L. North.
In 1991, The final withdrawal of American combat troops from southern Iraq began, 88 days after the United States launched its massive offensive to drive Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait.
In 1992, Libya cut itself off from the world for 24 hours to mark the sixth anniversary of the U.S. air raid, the same day the World Court rejected Libya’s appeal to prevent sanctions against it for refusing to turn over suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
In 1992, The Supreme Court threw out Apple’s lawsuit against Microsoft.
In 1992, A federal appeals court in New York ruled that hotel magnate Leona Helmsley, 71, must go to prison for tax evasion.
In 1993, Millions of black workers in South Africa went on strike to protest the slaying of activist Chris Hani.
In 1993, British archaeologists unearthed a 7,000-year old seafarer’s village on Dalma island in the United Arab Emirates. They said it was the first major settlement of the Ubaid period in that area.
In 1993, A government-funded study said that of 3,321 men surveyed, only 1.1 percent identified themselves as exclusively homosexual, a finding disputed by gay activists.
In 1994, The chiefs of the nation’s seven largest tobacco companies spent more than six hours being grilled by the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee about the effects of smoking.
In 1994, Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh promises to surrender after completion of his Seven Seals manuscript.
In 1994, Two American F-15 warplanes inadvertently shot down two U.S. helicopters over Northern Iraq, killing 26, including 15 Americans, five Kurds, three Turks, two Britons and a Frenchman.
In 1995, The United Nations Security Council gave permission to Iraq, still under sanctions for its invasion of Kuwait, to sell $2 billion dollars’ worth of oil to buy food, medicine and other supplies (however, Iraq rejected the offer).
In 1995, The United Nations Security Council gave permission to Iraq, still under sanctions for its invasion of Kuwait, to sell $2 billion dollars worth of oil to buy food, medicine and other supplies. (Iraq rejected the offer.)
In 1995, Burl Ives, American actor and singer (b. 1909) died from complications of oral cancer. He was an American actor, writer, and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives’s work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, “Ives’s voice … had the sheen and finesse of opera without its latter-day Puccinian vulgarities and without the pretensions of operatic ritual. It was genteel in expressive impact without being genteel in social conformity. And it moved people.”
In 1996, Six people died and more than 30 were wounded in Pakistan when a powerful bomb went off at a cancer hospital built by former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan.
In 1997, Attorney General Janet Reno rejected Republican calls to seek an independent counsel to investigate campaign fundraising.
In 1997, James McDougal, who’d agreed to cooperate with Whitewater prosecutors investigating President and Mrs. Clinton, drew a three-year prison sentence for 18 felony fraud and conspiracy counts.
In 1998, Virginia ignores requests from World Court and executes Paraguayan for murder of U.S. woman.
In 1998, President Clinton moderated a town meeting on race with an all-star panel of sports figures
In 1998, Microsoft announces Windows 98 will be released June 25.
In 1998, The Cyrix MII computer chip was released
In 1998, Eight members of the Republic of Texas separatist group were convicted on fraud charges in a federal court in Dallas.
In 1999, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr told Congress the Watergate-era law that gave him the power to probe actions of executive branch officials was flawed and should be abolished.
In 1999, NATO mistakenly bombed a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees; Yugoslav officials said 75 people were killed.
In 1999, Former Vice President Dan Quayle announced he would seek the Republican presidential nomination.
In 1999, A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.
In 2000, On Wall Street, stocks plummeted in heavy trading, with the Dow industrials down 617 points and the Nasdaq composite index falling 355 points, capping one of the worst weeks ever for US stocks.
In 2000, In Washington, protesters dumped manure on Pennsylvania Avenue, seeking to disrupt meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
2002, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez returns to office two days after being ousted and arrested by the country’s military.
In 2003, The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.
In 2003, U.S. troops in Baghdad capture Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the MS Achille Lauro in 1985.
In 2005, The Oregon Supreme Court nullifies marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year earlier by Multnomah County.
In 2007, At least 200,000 demonstrators in Ankara, Turkey protest against the possible candidacy of incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
In 2008, In Memphis, Michael Hooks Jr., was sentenced to 30 days in federal prison last Wednesday for his role in a bogus-invoice scam in 2001 in the Juvenile Court Clerk’s Office which was uncovered as a part of Operation TN Waltz. Hooks pleaded guilty in January to accepting $1,500 in fees for consulting work at Juvenile Court for work he did not do. Among the other politicians convicted and serving sentences in TN Waltz are Hook’s father, Michael Hooks, Sr. and former State Sen. John Ford.
In 2010, Nearly 2,700 are killed in a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Yushu, Qinghai, China.
In 2014, Twin bomb blasts in Abuja, Nigeria, kill at least 75 people and injures 141 others.
In 2014, Two hundred seventy-six schoolgirls are abducted by Boko Haram in Chibok, Northeastern Nigeria.
In 2016, In Japan, the foreshock of Kumamoto earthquakes occurs.
