On this day: May 14

Events on May 14

• 1027 Robert II of France names his son Henry I as junior King of the Franks. Wikipedia
• 1097 The Siege of Nicaea begins during the First Crusade. Wikipedia
• 1264 Second Barons' War: King Henry III was defeated at the Battle of Lewes and forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England. Wikipedia
• 1509 War of the League of Cambrai: French forces defeated the Venetians at the Battle of Agnadello in present-day Northern Italy. Wikipedia
• 1796 Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox inoculation. Wikipedia
• 1804 Led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the Corps of Discovery left Camp Dubois near present-day Hartford, Illinois, to begin the first overland expedition to the West Coast of the United States and back. Wikipedia
• 1856 Major Henry C. Wayne arrived in Indianola, Texas, with 34 camels to form the short-lived United States Camel Corps. Wikipedia
• 1857 Mindon Min was crowned as King of Burma. Wikipedia
• 1863 American Civil War: Union troops captured Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. Wikipedia
• 1868 Boshin War: Troops of the Tokugawa shogunate withdrew from the Battle of Utsunomiya Castle and retreated north towards Nikkō and Aizu. Wikipedia
• 1878 The last witchcraft trial in the United States opened in Salem, Massachusetts. Wikipedia
• 1919 Sir Harry Hands, the mayor of Cape Town, performed the first public observance of a two-minute silence in remembrance of those killed in World War I. Wikipedia
• 1925 Mrs Dalloway, one of Virginia Woolf's earliest and best-known novels, is published. Wikipedia
• 1931 Five people were killed in Ådalen, Sweden, as soldiers opened fire on an unarmed trade union demonstration. Wikipedia
• 1939 In Lima, Peru, Lina Medina became the youngest confirmed mother in history, giving birth at the age of five years, seven months and twenty-one days. Wikipedia
• 1940 World War II: The bulk of Dutch forces surrendered to the German Wehrmacht, ending the Battle of the Netherlands. Wikipedia
• 1943 Second World War: Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, killing 268 people aboard. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1951 Trains ran on the Talyllyn Railway in Wales for the first time since its preservation, making it the first railway in the world to be operated by volunteers. Wikipedia
• 1955 Cold War: Eight Eastern Bloc countries signed a mutual defense treaty to establish the Warsaw Pact. Wikipedia
• 1973 Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched. Wikipedia
• 1980 Salvadoran Civil War: Refugees trying to flee El Salvador across the Sumpul River to Honduras were attacked by both Salvadoran and Honduran forces, resulting in at least 300 deaths. Wikipedia
• 2008 On the day of the UEFA Cup Final, violence erupted between football hooligan supporters of both teams and the Greater Manchester Police, resulting in 39 arrests and 39 injured officers. Wikipedia
• 2010 British politician Stephen Timms survived a murder attempt by an Islamic extremist during a constituency surgery. Wikipedia
• 2010 Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on the STS-132 mission to deliver the first shuttle-launched Russian ISS component — Rassvet. This was originally slated to be the final launch of Atlantis, before Congress approved STS-135. Wikipedia
• 2022 Ten people are killed in a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. Wikipedia

Born on May 14

• 1316 Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor (died 1378) Wikipedia
• 1553 Margaret of Valois, Queen of France (died 1615) Wikipedia
• 1666 Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia (died 1732) Wikipedia
• 1727 Thomas Gainsborough, English painter (died 1788) Wikipedia
• 1771 Robert Owen, Welsh businessman and social reformer (died 1858) Wikipedia
• 1868 Magnus Hirschfeld, German physician and sexologist (died 1935) Wikipedia
• 1907 Ayub Khan, Pakistani general and politician, 2nd President of Pakistan (died 1974) Wikipedia
• 1910 Ne Win, Burmese army general and politician, 4th President of Burma (died 2002) Wikipedia
• 1922 Franjo Tuđman, Croatian historian and politician, 1st President of Croatia (died 1999) Wikipedia
• 1936 Bobby Darin, American singer-songwriter and actor (died 1973) Wikipedia
• 1943 Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, Icelandic academic and politician, 5th President of Iceland Wikipedia
• 1944 George Lucas, American director, producer, and screenwriter, founded Lucasfilm Wikipedia
• 1945 Yochanan Vollach, Israeli footballer Wikipedia
• 1952 Robert Zemeckis, American director, producer, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1961 Tim Roth, English actor and director Wikipedia
• 1969 Cate Blanchett, Australian actress Wikipedia
• 1971 Sofia Coppola, American director, producer, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1984 Mark Zuckerberg, American computer programmer and businessman, co-founder of Facebook Wikipedia
• 1993 Miranda Cosgrove, American actress and singer Wikipedia
• 1994 Marquinhos, Brazilian footballer Wikipedia
• 1996 Martin Garrix, Dutch DJ Wikipedia
• 1997 Rúben Dias, Portuguese footballer Wikipedia

Died on May 14

• 649 Pope Theodore I Wikipedia
• 964 Pope John XII (born 927) Wikipedia
• 1576 Tahmasp I, Shah of Persia (born 1514) Wikipedia
• 1610 Henry IV of France (born 1553) Wikipedia
• 1643 Louis XIII of France (born 1601) Wikipedia
• 1912 August Strindberg, Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist (born 1849) Wikipedia
• 1940 Emma Goldman, Lithuanian author and activist (born 1869) Wikipedia
• 1954 Heinz Guderian, Prussian-German general (born 1888) Wikipedia
• 1987 Rita Hayworth, American actress and dancer (born 1918) Wikipedia
• 1991 Jiang Qing, Chinese revolutionary, actress, and politician, member of the Gang of Four (born 1914) Wikipedia
• 1995 Christian B. Anfinsen, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1916) Wikipedia
• 1998 Frank Sinatra, American singer and actor (born 1915) Wikipedia
• 2015 B.B. King, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (born 1925) Wikipedia
• 2019 Tim Conway, American actor, writer, and comedian (born 1933) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Boniface of Tarsus Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Justa, Justina and Henedina Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Maria Domenica Mazzarello Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Matthias the Apostle (Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Communion, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Michael Garicoïts Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Mo Chutu of Lismore (Roman Catholic Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Théodore Guérin Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Victor and Corona Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: May 14 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Independence Day (Paraguay) Wikipedia
• Hastings Banda's Birthday (Malawi) Wikipedia
• National Unification Day (Liberia) Wikipedia
• The first day of Izumo-taisha Shrine Grand Festival. (Izumo-taisha) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “May 14” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/May 14” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “May 14” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for May 14 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.