14 October History
- 1066 - William of Normandy defeats King Harold in the Battle of Hastings.
- 1651 - Laws are passed in Massachusetts forbidding the poor to adopt excessive styles of dress.
- 1705 - The English Navy captures Barcelona in Spain.
- 1773 - Britain's East India Company tea ships' cargo is burned at Annapolis, Md.
- 1806 - Napoleon Bonaparte crushes the Prussian army at Jena, Germany.
- 1832 - Blackfeet Indians attack American Fur Company trappers near Montana's Jefferson River, killing one.
- 1884 - Transparent paper-strip photographic film is patented by George Eastman.
- 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.
- 1917 - Mata Hari, a Paris dancer, is executed by the French after being convicted of passing military secrets to the Germans.
- 1930 - Singer Ethel Merman stuns the audience when she holds a high C for sixteen bars while singing "I Got Rhythm" during her Broadway debut in Gershwin's Girl Crazy.
- 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.
- 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.
- 1950 - Chinese Communist Forces begin to infiltrate the North Korean Army.
- 1964 - Rev. Martin Luther King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating a policy of non-violence.
14 October Birthdays
- 1644 - William Penn, English Quaker leader and founder of Pennsylvania.
- 1888 - Katherine Mansfield, short story writer.
- 1890 - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th U.S. President (1953-1961).
- 1894 - e.e. cummings, American poet.
- 1896 - Lilian Gish, Film actress, "The First Lady of the Silent Screen."
- 1905 - Eugene Fodor, Hungarian-born travel writer.
- 1916 - C. Everett Koop, U.S. Surgeon General.
- 1926 - Son Thomas, blues guitarist and singer.