On May 14th...

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National Day (Paraguay)

964 Pope John XII died.

1607 The first permanent English settlement in America was established at Jamestown, in what is now Virginia.

1608 The Protestant Union was founded in Auhausen, Bavaria.

1610 King Henri IV of France was assassinated.

1643 King Louis XIII of France died.

1686 Physicist Gabriel Fahrenheit was born.

1702 Swedish troops under King Charles XII occupied Warsaw.

1727 Painter Thomas Gainsborough was born.

1771 Social reformer Robert Owen was born.

1787 The Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1796 Edward Jenner gave the first vaccination against smallpox.

1804 The Lewis and Clark Expedition set out from St. Louis, Missouri, on its mission to explore and map the Missouri and Columbia river basins.

1811 Paraguay achieved independence from Spain.

1842 The Illustrated London News, the world's first illustrated weekly newspaper, began publication.

1853 Gail Borden patented his process for condensing milk.

1862 Adolphe Nicole patented the chronograph.

1870 Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tennessee Claflin became the first female stockbrokers in America.

1878 Vaseline was granted a patent.

1885 Babe Henderson rode Joe Cotton to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1886 Paul Duffy rode Ben Ali to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1888 George Covington rode MacBeth II to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1889 The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was founded in London, England.

1890 Isaac Murphy rode Riley to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1904 Jamsetji Nasarwanji Tata, Indian industrialist and philanthropist, died.

1906 American politician Carl Schurz died.

1907 Sweden adopted universal suffrage for elections to its lower house and proportional representation for both houses.

1912 King Frederick VIII of Denmark died.

1918 Sunday baseball was made legal in Washington, D. C.

1919 Businessman Henry John Heinz died.

1927 Linus McAtee rode Whiskey to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1931 Five persons were killed when soldiers opened fire on an unarmed trade union demonstration in Âdalen, Sweden.

1935 Griffith Planetarium opened in Los Angeles, California.

1936 Singer Bobby Darin was born.

1940 The Netherlands surrendered to Germany.

1942 The U. S. Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was formed.

1944 German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel and two other generals attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
1944 Film director George Lucas was born.

1948 Israel became an independent nation as the last British troops left Palestine.

1952 Musician David Byrne was born.
1952 Astronaut Donald McMonagle was born.

1953 Musician Tom Cochrane was born.

1955 The Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania signed the Warsaw Pact.

1961 Stirling Moss won the Monaco Grand Prix.
1961 Actor Gary Cooper died.

1962 Princess Sophia of Greece and Prince Juan Carlos of Spain were married in Athens, Greece.

1963 Kuwait became a member of the United Nations.

1965 Frances Coralee Perkins, the first female member of the U. S. Cabinet, died.

1969 Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman suspended the constitution of Malaysia.
1969 The last Chevrolet Corsair was built.
1969 Actress Cate Blanchett was born.

1970 Two students were killed at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, by State Policemen who had been called in to quell disturbances on the campus.
1970 Actress Billie Burke died.

1973 The Skylab space station was launched into earth orbit.
1973 The last new episode of "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" aired on NBC-TV.

1977 Montreal Canadiens defeated the Boston Bruins to win the Stanley Cup.

1980 The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services began operation.

1981 The Boston Celtics defeated the Houston Rockets for the NBA Championship.

1982 Actor Hugh Beaumont died.

1984 Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, was born.

1987 In Fiji, Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra was ousted in that nation's first ever military coup.
1987 Actress Rita Hayworth died.

1988 A drunk driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71 nearC Carrollton, Kentucky, struck a bus carrying a church youth geoup, killing 27 persons.
1988 Willem Drees, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, died.

1989 The last new episode of "Family Ties" aired on ABC-TV.
1989 The last new episode of "Moonlighting" aired on ABC-TV.

1993 Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Jr., died.

1997 Magician Harry Blackstone, Jr., died.

1998 The last new episode of "Seinfeld" aired on NBC-TV.
1998 Singer Frank Sinatra died.

2003 Actor Robert Stack died.

2015 Singer B. B. King died.

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This page was last updated on May 13, 2018.