September 14
Events
Pre-1600
- AD 81 - Domitian became Emperor of the Roman Empire upon the death of his brother Titus.
- 786 - "Night of the three Caliphs": Harun al-Rashid becomes the Abbasid caliph upon the death of his brother al-Hadi. Birth of Harun's son al-Ma'mun.
- 919 - Battle of Islandbridge: High King Niall Glúndub is killed while leading an Irish coalition against the Vikings of Uí Ímair, led by King Sitric Cáech.
- 1115 - Roger of Salerno's Crusader army defeats a numerically superior Seljuk army in the battle of Sarmin
- 1180 - Genpei War: In the Battle of Ishibashiyama in Japan, the new military commander of the Minamoto clan, Minamoto no Yoritomo, is routed by Ōba Kagechika of the Taira clan.
- 1226 - The first recorded instance of the Catholic practice of perpetual Eucharistic adoration formally begins in Avignon, France.
- 1402 - Battle of Homildon Hill: An invading Scottish army under Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany and Archibald, Earl Douglas is decimated by a contingent of 500 English archers under the command of George, Earl of March and Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland.
1601–1900
- 1682 - Bishop Gore School, one of the oldest schools in Wales, is founded.
- 1685 - Morean War: the Battle of Kalamata ends in a Venetian victory over the forces of the Ottoman Empire under the Kapudan Pasha.
- 1723 - Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena lays down the first stone of Fort Manoel in Malta.
- 1741 - George Frideric Handel completes his oratorio Messiah.
- 1752 - The British Empire adopts the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days.
- 1763 - Seneca warriors defeat British forces at the Battle of Devil's Hole during Pontiac's War.
- 1782 - American Revolutionary War: Review of the French troops under General Rochambeau by General George Washington at Verplanck's Point, New York.
- 1791 - The Papal States lose Avignon to Revolutionary France.
- 1808 - Finnish War: Russians defeat the Swedes at the Battle of Oravais.
- 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: The French Grande Armée enters Moscow. The Fire of Moscow begins as soon as Russian troops leave the city.
- 1814 - Battle of Baltimore: The poem Defence of Fort McHenry is written by Francis Scott Key. The poem is later used as the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner.
- 1829 - The Ottoman Empire signs the Treaty of Adrianople with Russia, thus ending the Russo-Turkish War.
- 1846 - Jang Bahadur and his brothers massacre about 40 members of the Nepalese palace court.
- 1862 - American Civil War: The Battle of South Mountain, part of the Maryland Campaign, is fought.
1901–present
- 1901 - U.S. president William McKinley dies after being mortally wounded on September 6 by anarchist Leon Czolgosz and is succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt.
- 1911 - Russian Premier Pyotr Stolypin is shot by Dmitry Bogrov while attending a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tale of Tsar Saltan at the Kiev Opera House, in the presence of Tsar Nicholas II.
- 1914 -, the Royal Australian Navy's first submarine, is lost at sea with all hands near East New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
- 1917 - The Russian Empire is formally replaced by the Russian Republic.
- 1936 - Raoul Villain, who assassinated the French Socialist Jean Jaurès, is himself killed by Spanish Republicans in Ibiza.
- 1939 - World War II: The Estonian military boards the Polish submarine in Tallinn, sparking a diplomatic incident that the Soviet Union will later use to justify the annexation of Estonia.
- 1940 - Ip massacre: The Hungarian Army, supported by local Hungarians, kill 158 Romanian civilians in Ip, Sălaj, a village in Northern Transylvania, an act of ethnic cleansing.
- 1943 - World War II: The Wehrmacht starts a three-day retaliatory operation targeting several Greek villages in the region of Viannos, whose death toll would eventually exceed 500 persons.
- 1944 - World War II: Maastricht becomes the first Dutch city to be liberated by allied forces.
- 1948 - The Indian Army captures the city of Aurangabad as part of Operation Polo.
- 1954 - In a top secret nuclear test, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber drops a 40 kiloton atomic weapon just north of Totskoye village.
- 1958 - The first two German post-war rockets, designed by the German engineer Ernst Mohr, reach the upper atmosphere.
- 1960 - The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is founded.
- 1960 - Congo Crisis: Mobutu Sese Seko seizes power in a military coup, suspending parliament and the constitution.
- 1975 - The first American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, is canonized by Pope Paul VI.
- 1979 - Afghan leader Nur Muhammad Taraki is assassinated upon the order of Hafizullah Amin, who becomes the new General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party.
- 1982 - President-elect of Lebanon Bachir Gemayel is assassinated.
- 1984 - Joe Kittinger becomes the first person to fly a gas balloon alone across the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1985 - Penang Bridge, the longest bridge in Malaysia, connecting the island of Penang to the mainland, opens to traffic.
- 1989 - The Standard Gravure shooting where Joseph T. Wesbecker, a 47-year-old pressman, killed eight people and injured 12 people at his former workplace, Standard Gravure, before committing suicide.
- 1992 - The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declares the breakaway Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia to be illegal.
- 1993 - Lufthansa Flight 2904, an Airbus A320, crashes into an embankment after overshooting the runway at Okęcie International Airport, killing two people.
- 1994 - The rest of the Major League Baseball season is canceled because of a strike.
- 1997 - Eighty-one killed as five bogies of the Ahmedabad–Howrah Express plunge into a river in Bilaspur district of Madhya Pradesh, India.
- 1998 - Telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom.
- 1999 - Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations.
- 2000 - Microsoft releases Windows Me.
- 2001 - Historic National Prayer Service held at Washington National Cathedral for victims of the September 11 attacks. A similar service is held in Canada on Parliament Hill, the largest vigil ever held in the nation's capital.
- 2002 - Total Linhas Aéreas Flight 5561 crashes near Paranapanema, Brazil, killing both pilots on board.
- 2003 - In a referendum, Estonia approves joining the European Union.
- 2003 - Bissau-Guinean President Kumba Ialá is ousted from power in a bloodless military coup led by General Veríssimo Correia Seabra.
- 2007 - Prelude to the 2008 financial crisis: Northern Rock bank experiences the first bank run in the United Kingdom in 150 years.
- 2008 - Aeroflot Flight 821, a Boeing 737-500, crashes into a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway while on approach to Perm International Airport, in Perm, Russia, killing all 88 people on board.
- 2015 - The first observation of gravitational waves is made, announced by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations on 11 February 2016.
- 2019 - Yemen's Houthi rebels claim responsibility for an attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities.
- 2022 - Death of Queen Elizabeth II: The Queen's coffin is taken from Buckingham Palace, placed on a gun carriage of The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and moved in a procession to Westminster Hall for her lying in state over the next four days with the queue of mourners stretching for miles along the River Thames.
Births
Pre-1600
- 208 - Diadumenian, Roman emperor
- 768 - Al-Ma'mun, Abbasid caliph, 7th
- 938 - Sahib ibn Abbad, Persian scholar and statesman
- 953 - Guo Zongxun, Chinese emperor
- 1032 - Dao Zong, Chinese emperor
- 1246 - John Fitzalan III, English nobleman
- 1384 - Ephraim of Nea Makri, Greek martyr and saint
- 1388 - Claudius Clavus, Danish geographer and cartographer
- 1401 - Maria of Castile, Queen consort of Aragon and Naples
- 1485 - Anna of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Landgravine of Hesse
- 1486 - Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, German theologian, astrologer, and alchemist
- 1543 - Claudio Acquaviva, Italian priest, 5th Superior General of the Society of Jesus
- 1547 - Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Dutch politician
- 1580 - Francisco de Quevedo, Spanish poet and politician
1601–1900
- 1618 - Peter Lely, Dutch-English painter
- 1643 - Jeremiah Dummer, American silversmith
- 1656 - Thomas Baker, English historian and author
- 1713 - Johann Kies, German astronomer and mathematician
- 1721 - Eliphalet Dyer, American colonel, lawyer, and politician
- 1736 - Robert Raikes, English philanthropist, founded Sunday school
- 1737 - Michael Haydn, Austrian singer and composer
- 1769 - Alexander von Humboldt, German geographer and explorer
- 1774 - Lord William Bentinck, English general and politician, 14th Governor-General of India
- 1791 - Franz Bopp, German linguist and academic
- 1804 - John Gould, English ornithologist and illustrator
- 1804 - Louis Désiré Maigret, French bishop
- 1816 - Mary Hall Barrett Adams, American book editor and letter writer
- 1837 - Nikolai Bugaev, Georgian-Russian mathematician and philosopher
- 1843 - Lola Rodríguez de Tió, Puerto Rican poet, abolitionist, and women's rights activist
- 1847 - Fanny Holland, English actress and singer
- 1850 - Anton Mahnič, Slovenian bishop, philosopher, and theologian
- 1853 - Ponnambalam Arunachalam, Ceylonese civil servant and politician
- 1857 - Julia Platt, American embryologist and politician
- 1860 - Hamlin Garland, American novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer
- 1864 - Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, English lawyer and politician, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1867 - Charles Dana Gibson, American illustrator
- 1868 - Théodore Botrel, French singer-songwriter, poet, and playwright
- 1869 - Kid Nichols, American baseball player and manager
- 1872 - John Olof Dahlgren, Swedish-American soldier, Medal of Honor recipient
- 1879 - Margaret Sanger, American nurse and activist
- 1880 - Benjamin, Russian bishop and missionary
- 1880 - Archie Hahn, American sprinter, football player, and coach
- 1883 - Richard Gerstl, Austrian painter and illustrator
- 1885 - Vittorio Gui, Italian conductor, composer, and critic
- 1886 - Jan Masaryk, Czech soldier and politician, Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs
- 1887 - Karl Taylor Compton, American physicist
- 1891 - Ivan Matveyevich Vinogradov, Russian mathematician and academic
- 1892 - Laurence W. Allen, English lieutenant and pilot
- 1896 - José Mojica, Mexican tenor and actor
- 1898 - Lawrence Gellert, Hungarian-American musicologist and song collector
- 1898 - Ernest Nash, German-Italian photographer and scholar