14 April

Events43 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, is elected king of the Germans.1205 - Battle of Adrianople between Bulgarians and Crusaders.1341 - Sack of Saluzzo (Italy) by Italian-Angevine troops under Manfred V of Saluzzo1434 - The foundation stone of Cathedral St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes, France was laid.1471 - In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeat the Lancastrians under Warwick at the battle of Barnet; the Earl of Warwick is killed and Edward IV resumes the throne.1632 - Battle of Rain: Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War. 1699 - Khalsa. Birth of Khalsa, the brotherhood of the Sikh religion, in Northern India in accordance with the Nanakshahi calendar.1775 - The first abolition society in the 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.1828 - Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.1831 - Soldiers marching on a bridge in Manchester, England cause it to collapse.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 declares 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 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth.1865 - U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked in his home by Lewis Powell.1881 - The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight erupted in El Paso, Texas.1890 - The Pan-American Union is founded by the First International Conference of American States in Washington. 1894 - Thomas Edison demonstrates the kinetoscope, a device for peep-show viewing using photographs that flip in sequence, a precursor to movies.1912 - The British ocean liner RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage at 11:40 P.M., sinking with the loss of over 1,500 lives at about 2:20 a.m. the following morning.1915 - The Turks invade Armenia.1927 - The first Volvo car premieres, 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 plays his first National League game in Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. In this year, he played for the Boston Braves. Also, Ruth plays 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 organization that pursued Nazi and fascist policies, is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers after the April 6 invasion of Yugoslavia during Operation 25.1944 - A massive explosion rocks the Bombay harbor killing 300 and causing a loss of 20 million pounds at that time. See: Bombay Explosion (1944).1945 - Osijek, Croatia, is liberated from fascistic occupation.1956 - Videotape is first demonstrated at the 1956 NARTB (now NAB) convention in Chicago, Illinois. It is the demonstration of the first practical and commercially successful format called 2" Quadruplex.1958 - The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.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 3.1968 - 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. 1978 - 1978 Tbilisi Demonstrations: thousands of Georgians demonstrate against the attempt by the Soviet authorities to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language.1981 - The first operational space shuttle, Columbia, lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California after 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 orders major bombing raids against Tripoli and Benghazi, in Libya, which kills 60 people.1986 - 2.2 pound (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.1988 - In a United Nations ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.1994 - In a friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two United States Air Force F-15 aircraft mistakenly shoot-down two United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, killing 26 people.1999 - NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees - Yugoslav officials say 75 people are killed.1999 - A severe hailstorm lasting only one hour, causes over $1.5 billion worth of damage, in Sydney, Australia.2000 - Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich filed a lawsuit against P2P sharing phenomenon Napster. This law-suit eventually led the movement against file-sharing programs.2002 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returns to office two days after being ousted and arrested by his country's military.2003 - Human Genome Project successfully completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to 99.99 ccuracy.2003 - U.S. troops in Baghdad capture Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the Achille Lauro in 1985.2005 - Oregon Supreme Court nullifies nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year earlier by Multnomah County.2007 - At least 200,000 demonstrators in Ankara, Turkey protest against the possible candidacy of incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan2007 - 33 passengers are killed in Aksaray, Turkey in a bus crash going to Cappadocia.
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