TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: OCT 14
1066 Battle of Hastings: William the Conqueror and his Norman army defeat the English forces of Harold II who is killed in the battle
1322 Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland’s independence
1586 Mary Queen of Scots goes on trial for conspiracy against Elizabeth
1651 Laws are passed in Massachusetts forbidding the poor to adopt excessive styles of dress.
1773 Britain’s East India Company tea ships’ cargo is burned at Annapolis, Md.
1832 Blackfeet Indians attack American Fur Company trappers near Montana’s Jefferson River, killing one.
1834 1st black to obtain a US patent, Henry Blair, for a corn planter
1867 15th and last Tokugawa Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigns in Japan
1888 In England, Louis Le Prince filmed the experimental film “Roundhay Garden Scene.” It is the oldest surviving motion picture.
1912 Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is shot and wounded in assassination attempt in Milwaukee. He was saved by the papers in his breast pocket and, though wounded, insisted on finishing his speech.
1913 Senghenydd Colliery Disaster. In what is considered to be one of the worst mine disasters in recorded history, 440 people were killed when an explosion ripped through the Senghenydd coal mine in Wales.
1926 The book “Winnie-the-Pooh,” by A.A. Milne, made its debut.
1933 The Geneva disarmament conference breaks up as Germany proclaims withdrawal from the disarmament initiative, as well as from the League of Nations, effective October 23. This begins German policy of independent action in foreign affairs.
1936 The first SSB (Social Security Board) office opened in Austin, TX. From this point, the Board’s local office took over the assigning of Social Security Numbers.
1944 German Field Marshal Rommel, suspected of complicity in the July 20th plot against Hitler, is visited at home by two of Hitler’s staff and given the choice of public trial or suicide by poison. He chooses suicide and it is announced that he died of wounds.
1947 Test pilot Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier aboard a Bell X-1 rocket plane.
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis begins; USAF U-2 reconnaissance pilot photographs Cubans installing Soviet-made missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
1964 Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in civil rights.
1966 Montreal, Quebec, Canada, opens its underground Montreal Metro rapid-transit system.
1968 US Defense Department announces 24,000 soldiers and Marines will be sent back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours of duty.
1975 Pres Ford escapes injury when his limousine is struck broadside
1980 Pres nominee Ronald Reagan promises to name a woman to Supreme Court
1982 US President Reagan proclaims a war on drugs
1983 Prime Minister of Grenada Maurice Bishop overthrown and later executed by a military coup.
1986 Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev charged that the U.S. wanted to “bleed the Soviet Union economically” with the arms race in space.
1998 Eric Robert Rudolph charged with the 1996 bombing during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia; It was one of several bombing incidents Rudolph carried out to protest legalized abortion in the US.
2002 Britain stripped power from the Catholic and Protestant politicians of Northern Ireland. Britain resumed sole responsibility for running Northern Ireland.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
