This is a list of selected December 14 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Staging area
Images
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Roald Amundsen -
Roald Amundsen and his team at the South Pole -
Glasgow Subway -
Three Gorges Dam -
Tino Rangatiratanga flag -
Max Planck -
Damage from the Vargas floods -
George W. Bush (l) and Nouri al-Maliki (r) defend themselves against a thrown shoe -
Emperor Wenzong of Tang
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Feast day of Saint John of the Cross (Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism) | CN tags |
| 557 – A large earthquake severely damaged the city of Constantinople. | Date not cited |
| 1542 – Six-day-old Mary I succeeded to the throne of Scotland. | appears on February 8 |
| 1782 – In Avignon, France, the Montgolfier brothers conducted their first test of their hot air balloon. | refimprove |
| 1819 – Alabama was admitted as the 22nd U.S. state, after the statehood of present-day Northern Alabama was delayed for several years by the lack of a coastline until Mobile was captured from Spain during the War of 1812. | expansion |
| 1896 – Glasgow Subway, the third oldest below-ground metro system in the world after the London Underground and the Budapest Metro, began operations in Glasgow, Scotland. | outdated |
| 1900 – German physicist Max Planck presented a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law, suggesting that electromagnetic energy could only be emitted in quantized form. | refimprove section |
| 1918 – Frederick Charles, King of Finland, renounced the throne after criticism of his German nationality in the aftermath of World War I. | multiple issues |
| 1964 – The United States Supreme Court ruled in Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States that Congress could use the Constitution's Commerce Clause power to fight discrimination. | refimprove |
| 1989 – Chile held its first free election in 16 years and elected Patricio Aylwin as the new President of the Republic. | refimprove section |
| 1994 – Construction on the Three Gorges Dam began on the Yangtze river in China. | outdated |
| 1995 – The Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris to end the Bosnian War, establishing, among others, a new structure of government and political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. | refimprove |
| 2004 – The Millau Viaduct spanning the valley of the River Tarn near Millau in France, the tallest vehicular bridge in the world at 343 metres (1,125 ft), opened. | refimprove |
| 2004 – Cuba and Venezuela founded the Alliance for the Americas, an intergovernmental organization dedicated to the integration of Latin American and Caribbean nations. | unreferenced section |
Eligible
- 835 – In the Sweet Dew incident, Emperor Wenzong (pictured) of the Tang dynasty conspired to kill the powerful eunuchs of the Tang court, but the plot was foiled.
- 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Bean's Station, the final battle of the Knoxville campaign, was fought in Grainger County, Tennessee.
- 1911 – Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team became the first people to reach the South Pole.
- 1918 – The first British general election with female voters took place, with women over the age of thirty permitted to vote.
- 1918 – Giacomo Puccini's comic opera Gianni Schicchi premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
- 1948 – American physicists Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann were awarded a patent for their cathode-ray tube amusement device, the first interactive electronic game.
- 1960 – Australian cricketer Ian Meckiff was run out on the last day of the first Test match between Australia and the West Indies, resulting in the first tied Test in cricket history.
- 1962 – NASA's Mariner 2 became the world's first spacecraft to successfully conduct a planetary encounter when it flew by Venus.
- 1963 – The dam containing the Baldwin Hills Reservoir in Los Angeles failed, releasing a flood that killed five people and destroyed 277 homes.
- 1972 - Upon completing the third extra-vehicular activity of Apollo 17, American astronaut Gene Cernan became the last person to date to walk on the Moon.
- 1981 – The Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law, extending Israeli "laws, jurisdiction and administration" to the Golan Heights, effectively annexing the territory internationally recognized as part of Syria.
- 1992 – War in Abkhazia: A helicopter carrying evacuees was shot down during the siege of Tkvarcheli, resulting in at least 52 deaths and catalysing more concerted Russian military intervention on behalf of Abkhazia.
- 1998 – Kosovo War: Yugoslav forces ambushed a group of Kosovo Liberation Army militants attempting to smuggle weapons into Yugoslavia from Albania.
- 1999 – Torrential rains caused flash floods in the Venezuelan state of Vargas, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, the destruction of thousands of homes, and the complete collapse of the state's infrastructure.
- 2009 – The tino rangatiratanga flag, representing the Māori people, was officially recognized by the government of New Zealand.
- 2012 – A 20-year-old gunman shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
- 2012 – A 20-year-old gunman shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
- Born/died: | Aldfrith of Northumbria |d.or|704; 705| Niccolò Perotti |d|1480| Giovanni Battista Cipriani |d|1785| Louis Marshall |b|1856| Princess Alice of the United Kingdom |d|1878| DeFord Bailey |b|1899| Lupe Vélez |d|1944| Kim Beazley |b|1948 | KaDee Strickland |b|1975| Michael Owen |b|1979
December 14: Martyred Intellectuals Day in Bangladesh (1971)
Japanese battlecruiser Haruna
- 1650 – English domestic servant Anne Greene survived being hanged for infanticide.
- 1836 – The Toledo War, a mostly bloodless territorial dispute between Ohio and the Michigan Territory, was unofficially ended with a resolution passed by the controversial "Frostbitten Convention".
- 1913 – Haruna (pictured), the fourth and last Japanese battlecruiser of the Kongō class, was launched and went on to serve in both world wars.
- 2008 – During a press conference in Baghdad, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at U.S. president George W. Bush and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, yelling "This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq".
- John III of the Sedre (d. 648)
- Al-Ashraf Khalil (d. 1293)
- Helle Thorning-Schmidt (b. 1966)
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