Today In History. What Happened This Day In History
A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this
day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.
September 14 | ||
1146 | Zangi of the Near East is murdered. The Sultan Nur ad-Din, his son, pursues the conquest of Edessa. | |
1321 | Dante Alighieri dies of malaria just hours after finishing writing Paradiso. | |
1544 | Henry VIII’s forces take Boulogne, France. | |
1773 | Russian forces under Aleksandr Suvorov successfully storm a Turkish fort at Hirsov, Turkey. | |
1791 | Louis XVI swears his allegiance to the French constitution. | |
1812 | Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia reaches its climax as his Grande Armee enters Moscow–only to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few Russians who remained. | |
1814 | Francis Scott Key writes the words to the “Star Spangled Banner” as he waits aboard a British launch in the Chesapeake Bay for the outcome of the British assault on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. | |
1847 | U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott capture Mexico City, virtually bringing the two-year Mexican War to a close. | |
1853 | The Allies land at Eupatoria on the west coast of Crimea. | |
1862 | At the battles of South Mountain and Crampton’s Gap, Maryland Union troops smash into the Confederates as they close in on what will become the Antietam battleground. | |
1901 | Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the 26th President of the United States upon the death of William McKinley, who was shot eight days earlier. | |
1911 | Russian Premier Piotr Stolypin is mortally wounded in an assassination attempt at the Kiev opera house. | |
1943 | German troops abandon the Salerno front in Italy.. | |
1960 | Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia form OPEC. | |
1966 | Operation Attleboro, designed as a training exercise for American troops, becomes a month-long struggle against the Viet Cong. | |
1975 | Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton becomes the first native-born American saint in the Roman Catholic Church. | |
1979 | Nur Muhammad Taraki, president and former prime minister of Afghanistan, is assassinated in a coup in which prime minister Hafizullah Amin seizes power. | |
1982 | Bachir Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon, is killed along with 26 others in a bomb blast in Beirut. | |
1984 | Joe Kittinger, a former USAF fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, becomes the first person to pilot a gas balloon solo across the Atlantic Ocean. | |
1994 | Major League Baseball players strike over a salary cap and other proposed changes, forcing the cancellation of the entire postseason and the World Series. | |
2007 | Northern Rock Bank suffers the UK’s first bank run in 150 years. | |
Born on September 14 | ||
1769 | Baron Freidrich von Humbolt, German naturalist and explorer who made the first isothermic and isobaric maps. | |
1849 | Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist who studied dogs’ responsiveness. | |
1860 | Hamlin Garland, author who wrote about the Midwest in novles such as A Son of the Middle Border and The Book of the American Indian. | |
1864 | Lord Robert Cecil, one of the founders of the League of Nations and its president from 1923 to 1945. | |
1867 | Charles Dana Gibson, illustrator, creator of the ‘Gibson Girl.’ | |
1879 | Margaret Sanger, birth-control advocate and founder of Planned Parenthood. | |
1898 | Hal B. Wallis, film producer (The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca). | |
1921 | Constance Baker Motley, first African-American woman to be appointed a federal judge. | |
1930 | Allan Bloom, writer (The Closing of the American Mind). | |
1934 | Kate Millet, feminist writer, author of Sexual Politics. | |
1936 | Ferid Murad, Albanian-American physician and pharmacologist, is co-winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on nitroglycerin’s effects the cardiovascular system. | |
1948 | Marc Reisner, author and environmentalist best known for his book Cadillac Desert, a history of water management in the Western portion of the US. | |
1955 | Geraldine Brooks, Australian-American journalist and author; her novel March won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2005). | |
1961 | Wendy Thomas (Melinda “Wendy” Thomas Morse), namesake, mascot and spokesperson for the Wendy’s chain of fast-food restaurants. | |
1983 | Amy Winehouse, singer-songwriter; her five Grammy wins (out of six nominations) for her Back to Black album (2006) tied the existing record for most wins by a female artist in a single night; won Brit Award for Best British Female Artist (2007). |