This is a list of selected April 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, featured list 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
Use only ONE image at a time
-
Apollo 13 mission patch -
Damage to the Apollo 13 service module -
"Black Sunday" dust storm -
Bust of Septimius Severus -
Edward IV of England -
Gnassingbé Eyadéma -
Two-inch quadruplex videotape -
Niceto Alcalá-Zamora -
Noah Webster -
John Wilkes Booth -
Hailstones from the 1999 Sydney hailstorm
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Bengali New Year, | expansion |
| 1434 – The foundation stone of the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes, Brittany, France, was first laid, but the building was not completed until more than four centuries later in 1891. | refimprove |
| 1561 – A mass sighting of celestial phenomena (depicted) occurred in Nuremberg, Germany, where observers described an "aerial battle" between odd-shaped objects. | Not MP worthy |
| 1828 – Lexicographer Noah Webster copyrighted the first edition of his dictionary of American English. | refimprove section |
| 1927 – The first Volvo automobile was built in the factory in Hisingen, Gothenburg, Sweden. | date not cited, refimprove section |
| 1931 – After King Alfonso XIII left Spain, the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed by a provisional government led by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora. | lead too long |
| 1939 – The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel and a major factor in his 1962 Nobel Prize award, was first published. | refimprove sections |
| 1956 – The use of 2-inch quadruplex, the first practical and commercially successful videotape format, was first demonstrated in public. | unreferenced section |
| 2003 – The completion of the Human Genome Project was announced. | refimprove section |
| 2007 – In Ankara, Turkey, the first of the Republic Protests took place, when hundreds of thousands of people protested against the possible presidential candidacy of incumbent prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. | list should be converted to prose |
| 2010 – Plumes of ash from a major eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland led to widespread disruption of air travel throughout Europe for several days. | need to verify date -- earliest date with citation is 15 Apr |
| John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu |d|1471 | lead too long |
| N'Ko Alphabet Day in West Africa (1949) | Date not cited |
| M. Visvesvaraya |d|1962 | conflicting dates |
| Junko Sakurada |b|1958 | date failed verification |
Eligible
- 966 – Polish ruler Mieszko I converted to Christianity, an event considered to be the founding of the Polish state.
- 1471 – Wars of the Roses: The Yorkists under Edward IV defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Barnet, killing Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.
- 1865 – Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth fatally shot U.S. president Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
- 1906 – The Azusa Street Revival, the primary catalyst for the spread of Pentecostalism in the 20th century, opened in Los Angeles.
- 1908 – The first Hauser Dam in the U.S. state of Montana failed, causing severe flooding and damage downstream.
- 1909 – Following a reactionary military revolt against the Committee of Union and Progress, a mob began a massacre of Armenian Christians in the Adana Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1935 – Dust Bowl: A severe dust storm swept across Oklahoma and northern Texas, removing an estimated 300 million tons of topsoil from the prairies.
- 1945 – World War II: The German town of Friesoythe was razed by the 4th Canadian Division on the orders of Major General Christopher Vokes.
- 1967 – After leading a military coup three months earlier, Gnassingbé Eyadéma installed himself as President of Togo, a post that he held until 2005.
- 1978 – Thousands of Georgians demonstrated in Tbilisi against an attempt by the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language.
- 1999 – A storm dropped around 500,000 tonnes of hailstones on Sydney (examples pictured) and the east coast of New South Wales, causing about A$2.3 billion in damages, the costliest natural disaster in Australian insurance history.
- 2010 – Nearly 2,700 people were killed in an earthquake registering 6.9 Mw in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, China.
- 2014 – Boko Haram militants kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from a government secondary school in the town of Chibok, Nigeria.
- Born/died this day: | Lucia Visconti |d|1424| Christiaan Huygens |b|1629| William Whitehead |d|1785| Harriett Ellen Grannis Arey |b|1819| Alexander Greenlaw Hamilton |b|1852| Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom |b|1857| V. Gordon Childe |b|1892| L. L. Zamenhof |d|1917| Rod Steiger |b|1925| Berry Berenson |b|1948| Rachel Carson |d|1964| Lita |b|1975| Sarah Michelle Gellar |b|1977
Notes
- RMS Titanic listed on April 15
- A Dictionary of the English Language appears on April 15 so Noah Webster should not appear in the same year.
- Battle of Barnet and John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu, should not be featured in the same year
April 14: Tamil New Year and other New Year festivals in South and Southeast Asia (2024); Day of the Georgian Language (1978)
"Houston, we've had a problem here"
- 43 BC – War of Mutina: Despite initial success, troops loyal to Mark Antony were defeated near the Via Aemilia in northern Italy by legions loyal to the Roman Senate.
- 1944 – The freighter Fort Stikine, carrying cotton bales, gold and ammunition, exploded in the harbour of Bombay, India, sinking surrounding ships and causing about 800 deaths.
- 1970 – After an oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 exploded, disabling the spacecraft's electrical and life-support systems, astronaut Jack Swigert reported: "Houston, we've had a problem here" (audio featured).
- 1983 – Let's Dance, English musician David Bowie's best-selling album, was released.
- 1994 – Iraqi no-fly zones conflict: In a friendly-fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort, two U.S. Air Force aircraft mistakenly shot down two U.S. Army helicopters over northern Iraq, killing 26 people.
- Anne Sullivan (b. 1866)
- John Gielgud (b. 1904)
- Yakov Dzhugashvili (d. 1943)