History of 14 March
1900 – U.S. currency went on the gold standard with the ratification of the Gold Standard Act.
1900 – In Holland, Botanist Hugo de Vries rediscovered Mendel’s laws of heredity.
1901 – Utah Governor Heber M. Wells vetoed a bill that would have relaxed restrictions on polygamy.
1903 – The U.S. Senate ratified the Hay-Herran Treaty that guaranteed the U.S. the right to build a canal at Panama. The Columbian Senate rejected the treaty. A deal was signed on November 6, 1903, with the newly independent Panama.
1904 – The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the governments claim that the Northern Securities Company was an illegal merger between the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway companies.
1905 – French bankers refused to lend money to Russia until after their war.
1905 – The British House of Commons cited a need to compete with Germany in naval strength.
1906 – The island of Ustica was devastated by an earthquake.
1912 – An anarchist named Antonio Dalba unsuccessfully attempted to kill Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III in Rome.
1914 – Henry Ford announced the new continuous motion method to assemble cars. The process decreased the time to make a car from 12½ hours to 93 minutes.
1915 – The British Navy sank the German battleship Dresden off the Chilean coast.
1918 – An all-Russian Congress of Soviets ratified a peace treaty with the Central Powers.
1923 – President Harding became the first U.S. President to file an income tax report.
1932 – George Eastman, the founder of the Kodak company, committed suicide.
1936 – Adolf Hitler told a crowd of 300,000 that Germany’s only judge is God and itself.
1939 – Hungary occupied the Carpatho-Ukraine. Slovakia declared its independence.
1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to fly in an airplane while in office.
1945 – In Germany, a 22,000 pound “Grand Slam” bomb was dropped by the Royal Air Force Dumbuster Squad on the Bielefeld railway viaduct. It was the heaviest bomb used during World War II.
1947 – The U.S. signed a 99-year lease on naval bases in the Philippines.
1947 – Moscow announced that 890,532 German POWs were held in the U.S.S.R.
1951 – U.N. forces recaptured Seoul for the second time during the Korean War.
1958 – The U.S. government suspended arms shipments to the Batista government of Cuba.
1964 – A Dallas jury found Jack Ruby guilty of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.
1967 – John F. Kennedy’s body was moved from a temporary grave to a permanent one.
1976 – Egypt formally abrogated the 1971 Treaty Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union.
1978 – An Israeli force of 22,000 invaded south Lebanon. The PLO bases were hit.
1979 – The Census Bureau reported that 95% of all Americans were married or would get married.
1979 – Near Peking, China, at least 200 people died when a Trident aircraft crashed into a factory.
1980 – A Polish airliner crashed while making an emergency landing near Warsaw. 87 people were killed. A 14-man U.S. boxing team was aboard the plane.
1981 – Three Pakistani airline hijackers surrendered in Syria after they had exchanged 100 passengers and crewmen for 54 Pakistani prisoners.
1983 – OPEC agreed to cut its oil prices by 15% for the first time in its 23-year history.
1989 – Imported assault guns were banned in the U.S. under President George H.W. Bush.
1991 – The “Birmingham Six,” imprisoned for 16 years for their alleged part in an IRA pub bombing, were set free after a court agreed that the police fabricated evidence.
1991 – Bolivian interior minister Guillermo Capobianco resigned after U.S. officials accused him of receiving money from drug traffickers.
1995 – American astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to enter space aboard a Russian rocket.
1996 – U.S. President Bill Clinton committed $100 million for an anti-terrorism pact with Israel to track down and root out Islamic militants.
1998 – An earthquake left 10,000 homeless in southeastern Iran.
2002 – A Scottish appeals court upheld the conviction of a Libyan intelligence agent for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. A five-judge court ruled unanimously that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was guilty of bringing down the plane over Lockerbie, Scotland.
2003 – Robert Blake was released from jail on $1.5 million bails. Blake had been jailed for the murder of his wife Bonny Lee Bakley.
2006 – Members of the Chadian military fail in an attempted coup d’état.
2007 – The Left Front government of West Bengal sends at least 3,000 police to Nandigram in an attempt to break Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee resistance there; the resulting clash leaves 14 dead.
2008 – A series of riots, protests, and demonstrations erupted in Lhasa and elsewhere in Tibet.
2019 – Cyclone Idai has swept through Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe over the past few days, destroying almost everything in its path, causing devastating floods, killing and injuring thousands of people and ruining crops. More than 2.6 million people could be affected across the three countries, and the port city of Beira, which was hit on March 8 and is home to 500,000 people, is now an “island in the ocean”, almost completely cut off.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Bobby Jenks, American baseball player
- 1981 – George Wilson, American football player
- 1982 – Carlos Marinelli, the Argentinian footballer
- 1982 – François Sterchele, Belgian footballer (d. 2008)
- 1983 – Bakhtiyar Artayev, Kazakh boxer
- 1983 – Taylor Hanson, American singer-songwriter and keyboard player
- 1983 – Anas Sarwar, Scottish dentist, and politician
- 1983 – Jin Sha, Chinese singer, and actress
- 1984 – Aric Almirola, American race car driver
- 1984 – Liesel Pritzker Simmons, American actress, and philanthropist
- 1986 – Jamie Bell, English actor, and dancer
- 1986 – Elton Chigumbura, Zimbabwean cricketer
- 1986 – Jessica Gallagher, Australian skier, and cyclist
- 1986 – Andy Taylor, English footballer
- 1987 – Robert Clark, American actor
- 1988 – Stephen Curry, American basketball player
- 1988 – Rico Freimuth, German decathlete
- 1989 – Kevin Lacroix, Canadian race car driver
- 1989 – Colby O’Donis, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1990 – Joe Allen, Welsh footballer
- 1990 – Tamás Kádár, Hungarian footballer
- 1990 – Haru Kuroki, Japanese actress
- 1990 – Kolbeinn Sigþórsson, Icelandic footballer
- 1991 – Emir Bekrić, Serbian hurdler
- 1991 – Pat O’Hanlon, Australian rugby league player
- 1991 – László Szűcs, Hungarian footballer
- 1991 – Steven Zellner, German footballer
- 1993 – Philipp Ziereis, German footballer
- 1994 – Ansel Elgort, American actor and DJ
- 1996 – Batuhan Altıntaş, Turkish footballer
- 1997 – Simone Biles, American gymnast