May 14 is the 134th day of the year (135th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 231 days remaining until the end of the year
Holidays
- Christian feast day:
- Earliest day on which the first day of Sanja Matsuri can fall, while May 20 is the latest; celebrated on the third weekend of May. (Sensō-ji, Tokyo)
- Hastings Banda‘s Birthday (Malawi)
- National Unification Day (Liberia)
- The first day of Izumo-taisha Shrine Grand Festival. (Izumo-taisha)
- Argei (Ancient Rome)
History
In 1219, William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, English soldier and politician (b. 1147) dies. He was also called William the Marshal (Norman French: Guillaume le maréchal), was an English (or Anglo-Norman) soldier and statesman. Stephen Langton eulogized him as the “best knight that ever lived.” He served four kings – Henry II, Richard the Lionheart, John, and Henry III – and rose from obscurity to become a regent of England for the last of the four, and so one of the most powerful men in Europe. Before him, the hereditary title of “Marshal” designated head of household security for the king of England; by the time he died, people throughout Europe (not just England) referred to him simply as “the Marshal”. He received the title of “1st Earl of Pembroke” through marriage during the second creation of the Pembroke Earldom.
In 1264, Battle of Lewes: Henry III of England is captured and forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
In 1509, Battle of Agnadello: In northern Italy, French forces defeat the Venetians.
In 1607, Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony.
In 1608, The Protestant Union is founded in Auhausen.
In 1610, Henry IV of France is assassinated, bringing Louis XIII to the throne.
In 1643, Four-year-old Louis XIV becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.
In 1747, War of the Austrian Succession: A British fleet under Admiral George Anson defeats the French at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre.
In 1787, In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates convene a Constitutional Convention to write a new Constitution for the United States; George Washington presides.
In 1796, Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination.
In 1804, The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begins its historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.
In 1811, Paraguay: Pedro Juan Caballero, Fulgencio Yegros and José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia start actions to depose the Spanish governor
In 1836, The Treaties of Velasco are signed in Velasco, Texas.
In 1863, American Civil War: The Battle of Jackson takes place. The Battle of Jackson, in Jackson, Mississippi, was part of the Vicksburg Campaign in the American Civil War. Union commander Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee defeated Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, seizing the city, cutting supply lines, and opening the path to the west and the Siege of Vicksburg.
In 1868, Boshin War: The Battle of Utsunomiya Castle ends as former Tokugawa shogunate forces withdraw northward to Aizu by way of Nikkō.
In 1870, The first game of rugby in New Zealand is played in Nelson between Nelson College and the Nelson Rugby Football Club.
In 1878, Ōkubo Toshimichi, Japanese samurai and politician (b. 1830) was assassinated by Shimada Ichirō and six Kanazawa Domain samurai while on his way to the imperial palace. He was a Japanese statesman, a samurai of Satsuma, and one of the three great nobles who led the Meiji Restoration. He is regarded as one of the main founders of modern Japan. Ōkubo was one of the most influential leaders of the Meiji Restoration and the establishment of modern governmental structures. Briefly, for a time he was the most powerful man in Japan. A devout loyalist and nationalist, he enjoyed the respect of his colleagues and enemies alike.
In 1879, The first group of 463 Indian indentured laborers arrives in Fiji aboard the Leonidas.
In 1889, The children’s charity, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is launched in London.
In 1897, The Stars and Stripes Forever is first performed in public near Willow Grove Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1913, New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100 million donation from John D. Rockefeller.
In 1925, Virginia Woolf‘s novel Mrs Dalloway is published.
In 1929, Wilfred Rhodes takes his 4000th first-class wicket during a performance of 9 for 39 at Leyton; he is the only player in history to have reached that number.
In 1931, Ådalen shootings: five people are killed in Ådalen, Sweden, as soldiers open fire on an unarmed trade union demonstration.
In 1935, The Philippines ratifies an independence agreement.
In 1939, Lina Medina becomes the youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.
In 1940, World War II: Rotterdam is bombed by the German Luftwaffe.
In 1940, World War II: The Battle of the Netherlands ends with the Netherlands surrendering to Germany.
In 1940, The Yermolayev Yer-2, a long-range Soviet medium bomber, has its first flight.
In 1943, World War II: A Japanese submarine sinks AHS Centaur off the coast of Queensland.
In 1948, Israel is declared to be an independent state and a provisional government is established. Immediately after the declaration, Israel is attacked by the neighboring Arab states, triggering the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
In 1951, Trains run on the Talyllyn Railway in Wales for the first time since preservation, making it the first railway in the world to be operated by volunteers.
In 1955, Cold War: Eight Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.
In 1961, American civil rights movement: The Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama, and the civil rights protesters are beaten by an angry mob.
In 1963, Kuwait joins the United Nations.
In 1968, Husband E. Kimmel, American admiral (b. 1882) dies. He was a four-star admiral in the United States Navy and Commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was removed from that command after the attack and reduced to the two-star rank of rear admiral. He retired from the Navy with that rank. In January 1941 Kimmel began duties as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet with a brevet rank of admiral. In this role he earned a reputation for attention to detail, if sometimes at the expense of larger structural planning. After Admiral James O. Richardson was removed as Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet and Pacific Fleet in February 1941, Kimmel assumed command with the temporary rank of admiral. The base for the fleet had been moved from its traditional home at San Diego, California to Pearl Harbor in May 1940. On February 18, 1941, Kimmel wrote to the Chief of Naval Operations: I feel that a surprise attack (submarine, air, or combined) on Pearl Harbor is a possibility, and we are taking immediate practical steps to minimize the damage inflicted and to ensure that the attacking force will pay.
In 1970, The Red Army Faction is established in West Germany.
In 1973, Skylab, the United States’ first space station, is launched.
In 1984, Walter Rauff, German SS officer (b. 1906) dies of lung cancer in Santiago, Chile. His funeral was the occasion of a Nazi celebration. According to his MI5 file, “he never showed any remorse for his actions, which he described as those of “a mere technical administrator”. He was an SS officer in Nazi Germany, attaining the grade of Colonel (Standartenführer) in June 1944. From January 1938 he was an aide of Reinhard Heydrich firstly in the Sicherheitsdienst or SD, the SS security service, later in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office, a department created by Himmler in 1939 grouping the Gestapo, SD and Kripo, the criminal police. Between 1958 and 1962 he worked for the Bundesnachrichtendienst, West Germany‘s intelligence service. His funeral in Santiago, Chile was attended by hundreds of old Nazis. Rauff is thought to have been responsible for nearly 100,000 deaths during the Second World War. He was instrumental in the creation of the Nazis’ “mobile gas chamber”. His victims included Communists, Jews, Roma and the physically and mentally ill. In the late 1970s and ’80s, he was arguably the most wanted Nazi fugitive still alive.
In 1988, Carrollton bus collision: A drunk driver traveling the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, United States hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group. Twenty-seven die in the crash and ensuing fire.
In 1993, William Randolph Hearst, Jr., American journalist (b. 1908) dies. He was the second son of the publisher William Randolph Hearst. He became editor-in-chief of Hearst Newspapers after the death of his father in 1951. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his interview with Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, and associated commentaries in 1955. Hearst attended the University of California, Berkeley and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. He was instrumental in restoring some measure of family control to the Hearst Corporation, which under his father’s will is (and will continue to be while any grandchild alive at William Randolph Hearst Sr.’s death in 1951 is still living) controlled by a board of thirteen trustees, five from the Hearst family and eight Hearst executives. When tax laws changed to prevent the foundations his father had established from continuing to own the corporation, he arranged for the family trust (with the same trustees) to buy the shares and for longtime chief executive Richard E. Berlin, who was going senile, to be eased out to become chairman of the trustees for a period. Later William Randolph Hearst Jr. himself headed the trust and served as chairman of the executive committee of the corporation. Today his branch of the family is represented on the trustees by his son William Randolph Hearst III.
In 1997, Harry Blackstone, Jr., American magician and author (b. 1934) died at the age of 62 due to pancreatic cancer. He was an American stage magician, author, and television performer.
In 1998, Frank Sinatra, American singer and actor (b. 1915) dies. was an American singer and film actor. Beginning his musical career in the swing era as a boy singer with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra found success as a solo artist from the early to mid-1940s after being signed by Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the “bobby soxers“, he released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1946. His professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity. He signed with Capitol Records in 1953 and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice ‘n’ Easy). Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records in 1961 (finding success with albums such as Ring-a-Ding-Ding!, Sinatra at the Sands and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim), toured internationally, was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and statesmen, including John F. Kennedy. Sinatra turned 50 in 1965, recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with “Strangers in the Night” and “My Way“. With sales of his music dwindling and after appearing in several poorly received films, Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971. Two years later, however, he came out of retirement and from 1973 recorded several albums, scoring a Top 40 hit with “(Theme From) New York, New York” in 1980. Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally, until a short time before his death in 1998. Sinatra also forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning Best Supporting Actor in 1953, he also garnered a nomination for Best Actor for The Man with the Golden Arm, and critical acclaim for his performance in The Manchurian Candidate. He also starred in such musicals as High Society, Pal Joey, Guys and Dolls and On the Town. Sinatra is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2004, The Constitutional Court of South Korea overturns the impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun.
In 2008, As of this day there was a reported 1704 properties in foreclosure in Madison County, Tennessee. That number has doubled in the last 3 months. 12 of these are above $200,000 and of those 12, 1/3 are above $300,000.00.
In 2012, Agni Air Flight CHT crashed near Jomsom Airport in Jomsom, Nepal, after a failed go-around, killing 15 people.
In 2012, Sir Oliver Davis Neudecker died of pancreatic cancer. He was 4 years old and the third Bassett of Frank and Sally Neudecker. He was God’s gift to us.
In 2013, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declares a state of emergency in the northeast states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa due to the terrorist activities of Boko Haram.
May God Bless and Keep You This Day Till Tomorrow
