November 14 - Events

Events

• 1533 – Conquistadors from Spain under the leadership of Francisco Pizarro arrive in Cajamarca, Inca Empire
• 1770 – James Bruce discovers what he believes to be the source of the Nile
• 1862 – American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, leading to the Battle of Fredericksburg.
• 1889 – Pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) begins a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completes the trip in seventy-two days.
• 1910 – Aviator Eugene Burton Ely performs the first take off from a ship in Hampton Roads, Virginia. He took off from a makeshift deck on the USS Birmingham in a Curtiss pusher.
• 1916 – World War I: The Battle of the Somme ends.
• 1918 – Czechoslovakia becomes a republic.
• 1921 – The Communist Party of Spain is founded.
• 1922 – The BBC begins radio service in the United Kingdom.
• 1940 – World War II: In England, the city of Coventry is heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe bombers. Coventry Cathedral is almost completely destroyed.
• 1941 – World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks due to torpedo damage from the German submarine U-81 sustained on November 13.
• 1941 – World War II: In Slonim, German forces engaged in Operation Barbarossa murdered 9000 Jews in a single day.
• 1952 – The first regular UK Singles Chart published by the New Musical Express.
• 1957 – The Apalachin Meeting outside Binghamton, New York is raided by law enforcement, and many high level Mafia figures are arrested.
• 1965 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Ia Drang begins – the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces.
• 1967 – The Congress of Colombia, in commemoration of the 150 years of the death of Policarpa Salavarrieta, declares this day as "Day of the Colombian Woman".
• 1967 – American physicist Theodore Maiman is given a patent for his ruby laser systems, the world's first laser.
• 1969 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second crewed mission to the surface of the Moon.
• 1970 – Soviet Union enters ICAO, making Russian the fourth official language of organization.
• 1970 – Southern Airways Flight 932 crashes in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75, including members of the Marshall University football team.
• 1971 – Enthronment of Pope Shenouda III as Pope of Alexandria
• 1971 – Mariner 9 enters orbit around Mars
• 1973 – In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey.
• 1975 – Spain abandons Western Sahara.
• 1979 – Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis.
• 1982 – Lech Wałęsa, the leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, is released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border.
• 1984 – Zamboanga City mayor Cesar Climaco, a prominent critic of the government of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, is assassinated in his home city.
• 1990 – After German reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland sign a treaty confirming the Oder–Neisse line as the border between Germany and Poland.
• 1991 – American and British authorities announce indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103.
• 1991 – Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returns to Phnom Penh after thirteen years of exile.
• 1991 – In Royal Oak, Michigan, a fired United States Postal Service employee goes on a shooting rampage, killing four and wounding five before committing suicide.
• 1995 – A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums and to run most government offices with skeleton staffs.
• 2001 – War in Afghanistan: Afghan Northern Alliance fighters take over the capital Kabul.
• 2003 – Astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz discover 90377 Sedna, a Trans-Neptunian object.
• 2012 – Israel launches a major military operation in the Gaza Strip, as hostilities with Hamas escalate.