1914 in the United States

Events from the year 1914 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government">Federal government of the United States">Federal government

President: Woodrow Wilson
[Vice President of the United States|President of the United States|Vice President]: Thomas R. Marshall
Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White
Speaker of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark
Congress: 63rd

Events

January–March

January 1 - The St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line starts services between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida, becoming the world's first airline to provide scheduled regular commercial passenger services with heavier-than-air aircraft, with Anthony Jannus conveying passengers in a Benoist XIV flying boat. Abram C. Pheil, mayor of St. Petersburg, is the first airline passenger, and over 3,000 people witness the first departure.
January 5 - The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.
January 9 - The Phi Beta Sigma fraternity is founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
February 13 - Copyright: In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

April–June

April 6 - The American Radio Relay League is founded.
April 9 - Tampico Affair, involving U.S. Navy sailors in Mexico.
April 11 - Alpha Rho Chi, a professional architecture fraternity, is founded in the Hotel Sherman in Chicago.
April 14 - The city of Irving, Texas, is incorporated.
April 18 – Eccles mine disaster
April 20
* Ludlow Massacre : The Colorado National Guard attacks a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners in Ludlow, Colorado, killing 24 people.
* President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to use military force in Mexico in reaction to the Tampico Affair.
April 21 - United States occupation of Veracruz: 2,300 U.S. Navy sailors and Marines from the South Atlantic fleet land in the port city of Veracruz, Mexico, which they will occupy for over 6 months. The Ypiranga incident occurs when they attempt to enforce an arms embargo against Mexico by preventing the German cargo steamer from unloading arms for the Mexican government in the port. On April 22 Mexico for the time being ends diplomatic relations with the U.S.
April 23 - The baseball stadium Weeghman Park, later known as Wrigley Field, opens in Chicago.
May 14 - Woodrow Wilson signs a Mother's Day proclamation.
June 1 - Woodrow Wilson's envoy Edward Mandell House meets with Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

July–September

July 4 - Lexington Avenue bombing: 4 people are killed in New York City when an anarchist bomb intended to kill John D. Rockefeller explodes prematurely in the plotters' apartment.
July 11
* Baseball legend Babe Ruth makes his major league debut with the Boston Red Sox.
* USS Nevada, the United States Navy's first "super-dreadnought" battleship, is launched.
* Over 5,000 attend a rally in Union Square, Manhattan, called by the Anti-Militarist League to commemorate the anarchists killed in the July 4 Lexington Avenue bombing.
July 18 - The Signal Corps of the United States Army is formed, giving definite status to its air service for the first time.
August 1 - New York Stock Exchange closed due to war in Europe, where nearly all stock exchanges are already closed.
August 4 - German troops invade neutral Belgium at 8:02 AM. Britain declares war on Germany for this violation of Belgian neutrality. This move effectively means a declaration of war by the whole British Commonwealth and Empire against Germany. The United States declares neutrality.
August 15
* The Panama Canal is inaugurated with the passage of the steamship U.S.S. Ancon.
* A dismissed servant kills seven people at architect Frank Lloyd Wright's studio and home, Taliesin in Wisconsin, and sets it on fire.
September 1 - The last known passenger pigeon "Martha" dies in the Cincinnati Zoo.
September 26 - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
September 30 - The Flying Squadron is established to promote the temperance movement.

October–December

October 7 - Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. marries Rose Fitzgerald in Boston.
November 3 - Charles Henderson is elected the 35th governor of Alabama defeating John B. Shields.
November 16 - A year after being created by passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens for business.
November 23 - U.S. troops withdraw from Veracruz. Venustiano Carranza's troops take over and Carranza makes the town his headquarters.
November 28 - World War I: Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading.
December 12 - The New York Stock Exchange re-opened, having been closed since August 1, 1914, except for bond trading.
December 17 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act.

Undated

The Port of Orange, Texas, is dredged for the fabrication of vessels for the United States Navy.
The United States Power Squadrons is formed.
Phi Sigma, a local undergraduate classical club, is founded by a group of students in the Greek Department at the University of Chicago.
Henry Ford sells 248,000 cars.

Ongoing

Births

January 1 – Anita Mackey american social worker and supercentenarian
January 4 - Herman Franks, baseball player, coach and manager
January 7 - Bobby McDermott, basketball player
January 11 –Morrie Markoff, American blogger and supercentenarian
January 12 - Edward Gurney, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1969 to 1974
January 27 - Smokey Hogg, Texas blues and country blues musician
January 30 - David Wayne, actor
January 31
* Carey Loftin, actor and stuntman
* Daya Mata, president of Self-Realization Fellowship
* Jersey Joe Walcott, boxer
February 5 - William S. Burroughs, writer and artist
February 6 - Thurl Ravenscroft, American actor, voice actor and bass singer
February 8- Bill Finger, comic book writer, co-creator of Batman and Green Lantern
February 9
* Bill Justice, Disney animator
* Ernest Tubb, singer
February 11 - Matt Dennis, singer and songwriter
February 16 - Jimmy Wakely, country-western singer, actor
February 17 - Wayne Morris, American actor and producer
February 18 - Marion Miley, golfer
February 21 - Zachary Scott, actor
March 1
* Harry Caray, baseball broadcaster
* Ralph Ellison, writer
March 2
* Mayo Kaan, bodybuilder
* Martin Ritt, director
March 4 - Robert R. Wilson, physicist, sculptor and architect
March 10 - Leland McPhie, centenarian track and field athlete
March 13 - Edward "Butch" O'Hare, American pilot
March 14 - Hubert Zemke, fighter ace
March 17 - Sammy Baugh, American football player
March 19 - Jay Berwanger, American football player
March 20 - Richard Carlyle, American actor
March 25 - Norman Borlaug, agronomist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
March 27
* Budd Schulberg, screenwriter
* Richard Denning, actor
April 3 - Harry E. Goldsworthy, American Air Force lieutenant general
April 4 - Richard Coogan, actor
April 17 - Dovey Johnson Roundtree, civil rights activist, ordained minister and attorney
April 20 - Betty Lou Gerson, actress
April 21 - James Henry Quello, Federal Communications Commissioner
April 24 - William Castle, film director, producer and screenwriter
April 25 - Jerry Gaetz, politician
May 9 - Denham Fouts, prostitute
May 10 - Viola Fletcher, housekeeper and survivor of the Tulsa race massacre
May 12 - Howard K. Smith, journalist
May 18 - Maxine Grimm, religious figure
May 22
* Vance Packard, social critic and author
* Sun Ra, musician
* William Sperry Beinecke, philanthropist
May 24 - Arthur A. Link, politician
May 26 - Frankie Manning, choreographer, dancer
June 2 - Johnny Bulla, golfer
June 6 - H. Adams Carter, mountaineer, journalist and educator
June 7 - Ralph M. Holman, attorney and judge
June 10
* Trammell Crow, property developer
* Joseph DePietro, weightlifter
June 12 - Bill Kenny, African American tenor vocalist
June 19 - Alan Cranston, U.S. Senator from California from 1969 to 1993
June 21 - Rex Applegate, military officer
June 26
* Kathryn Johnston, elderly African-American police shooting victim from Atlanta, Georgia
* Doc Williams, musician
June 27 - Rose Cabat, studio ceramicist
June 28 - Ian MacDonald, actor
July 1 - Bernard B. Wolfe, politician
July 2
* Bob Allen, American Major League Baseball pitcher
* Dale DeArmond, American printmaker and book illustrator
* Frederick Fennell, American conductor
* Ethelreda Leopold, American film actress
July 5 - John Thomas Dunlop, administrator and labor scholar
July 6 - Ernest Kirkendall, chemist and metallurgist
July 7
* Erni Cabat, artist
* Harvey B. Scribner, educator and administrator
July 14
* Fred Fox, musician
* Baruch Korff, rabbi
* George Putnam, reporter and talk show host
July 18 - Mack Robinson, athlete
July 19 - Marius Russo, baseball player
July 22 - Richard Lankford, politician
July 24 - Ed Mirvish, American-born Canadian businessman
July 25 - Lionel Van Deerlin, politician
July 29 - Irwin Corey, actor and comedian
August 2 - Beatrice Straight, actress
August 5
* Parley Baer, actor
* David Brian, actor
August 10 - Jeff Corey, actor and drama teacher
August 16
* John Lysak, canoeist
* Frank Wilkinson, civil liberties activist
August 17
* Bill Downs, broadcast journalist and war correspondent
* Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr., lawyer and politician
August 31 - Joan Barclay, actress
September 2 - Tom Glazer, folk singer and songwriter
September 9 - Marjorie Lee Brown, mathematician
September 15 - Robert McCloskey, children's author/illustrator
September 16 - Allen Funt, television show host
September 20
* Ken Hechler, politician
* Anna Karen Morrow, actress
September 18 - Harry Townes, actor
September 21 - Bob Lido, singer and musician
September 26 - Francois Henri "Jack" LaLanne, fitness and dietary health trainer
October 1 - Marvin Gay Sr., minister
October 2
* Richard Millard, suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California
* Jack Parsons, rocket engineer and occultist
October 3 – Ellsworth Wareham, cardiothoracic surgeon
October 7 - Alfred Drake, actor and singer
October 9 - Edward Andrews, stage, film and television actor
October 10 - Tommy Fine, baseball player
October 13 - Eleanor Perry, screenwriter and author
October 14 - Raymond Davis Jr., physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
October 16 - Leonard Litwin, real estate developer
October 21 - Martin Gardner, writer
October 23 - Dick Durrance, skier
October 25
* John Berryman, poet
* Maudie Prickett, actress
October 28
* Glenn Robert Davis, congressman
* Jonas Salk, medical researcher
October 29 - Ben Gage, actor, singer, and radio announcer
October 30 - Jane Randolph, actress
November 2
* Johnny Vander Meer, baseball player
* Ray Walston, actor
November 3 - William A. Wilson, diplomat and businessman
November 6 - Jonathan Harris, actor
November 8 - Norman Lloyd, actor, producer and director
November 10 - Tod Andrews, actor
November 11
* Daisy Bates, civil rights activist, publisher, journalist, and lecturer
* Howard Fast, novelist and television writer
* Henry Wade, lawyer
November 22 - Alex Pitko, baseball player
November 23 - George Dunn, actor
November 25 - Joe DiMaggio, Major League Baseball center fielder
November 26 - S. Prestley Blake, businessman
November 28 - Gertrude Jeannette, actress
December 2 - Bill Erwin, American actor
December 6 - Ruchoma Shain, American teacher and author
December 8
* Corbett Davis, American football player
* Mary Tortorich, American voice teacher
December 9 - Frances Reid, American actress
December 18 - Chuck Apolskis, American footballer
December 20 - Harry F. Byrd Jr., U.S. senator from Virginia from 1965 to 1983
December 29 - Billy Tipton, jazz musician date unknown - Clint C. Wilson Sr., African American editorial cartoonist

Deaths

January 8 - Simon Bolivar Buckner, soldier and politician, 30th governor of Kentucky
January 28 - Shelby Moore Cullom, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1883 to 1913
February 14 - Augustus Octavius Bacon, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1895 to 1914
February 23 - Henry M. Teller, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1876 to 1882 and from 1885 to 1909
March 6 - George Washington Vanderbilt II, businessman
March 26 - Benjamin Franklin Keith, vaudeville theatre owner
March 28 - Randolph McCoy patriarch of the McCoy clan during the Hatfield-McCoy feud
May 9 - C. W. Post, businessman, founder of Post Foods
May 23 - William O'Connell Bradley, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1895 to 1899
June 14 - Adlai E. Stevenson, 23rd vice president of the United States from 1893 to 1897
August 6 - Ellen Axson Wilson, wife of Woodrow Wilson, First Lady of the United States
August 25 - Powell Clayton, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1868 to 1871
September 13 - Charles N. Felton, U.S. Senator from California from 1891 to 1893
September 28 - Christian Fleetwood, U.S. Sergeant Major in the 4th U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment during the Civil War
November 1 - Adna Chaffee, Lieutenant General
November 15 - Harry Turner, American football player
November 20 or 21 - Thaddeus C. Pound, businessman and politician
December 22 - William Stanley West, U.S. Senator from Georgia in 1914