On This Day — 14 December

2000s

2025

At least 16 people are killed, including one gunman, and 43 injured in a mass shooting during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in the deadliest terror incident in Australia.

2025 Bondi Beach shooting

2020

A total solar eclipse is visible from parts of the South Pacific Ocean, southern South America, and the South Atlantic Ocean.

Solar eclipse of December 14, 2020

2017

The Walt Disney Company announces that it would acquire 21st Century Fox, including the 20th Century Fox movie studio, for $52.4 billion.

The Walt Disney Company

2013

A reported coup attempt in South Sudan leads to continued fighting and hundreds of casualties.

South Sudanese Civil War

2012

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: Twenty-eight people, including the gunman, are killed in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting

2004

The Millau Viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, is formally inaugurated near Millau, France.

Millau Viaduct

2003

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf narrowly escapes an assassination attempt.

Pervez Musharraf

1900s

1999

Torrential rains cause flash floods in Vargas, Venezuela, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, the destruction of thousands of homes, and the complete collapse of the state's infrastructure.

Vargas tragedy

1998

Yugoslav Wars: The Yugoslav Army ambushes a group of Kosovo Liberation Army fighters attempting to smuggle weapons from Albania into Kosovo, killing 36.

Armed Forces of Serbia and Montenegro

1995

Yugoslav Wars: The Dayton Agreement is signed in Paris by the leaders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the same day, NATO began ground peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Yugoslav Wars

1994

Construction begins on the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river.

Three Gorges Dam

1992

War in Abkhazia: Siege of Tkvarcheli: A helicopter carrying evacuees from Tkvarcheli is shot down, resulting in at least 52 deaths, including 25 children. The incident catalyses more concerted Russian military intervention on behalf of Abkhazia.

War in Abkhazia (1992–1993)

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1986

Qasba Aligarh massacre: Over 400 Muhajirs killed in revenge killings in Qasba colony after a raid on Pashtun heroin processing and distribution center in Sohrab Goth by the security forces.

Qasba Aligarh massacre

1985

Wilma Mankiller takes office as the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Wilma Mankiller

1981

Arab–Israeli conflict: Israel's Knesset ratifies the Golan Heights Law, extending Israeli law to the Golan Heights.

Arab–Israeli conflict

1972

Apollo program: Eugene Cernan is the most recent person to walk on the Moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final extravehicular activity (EVA) of the Apollo 17 mission.

Apollo program

1971

Bangladesh Liberation War: Over 200 of East Pakistan's intellectuals are executed by the Pakistan Army and their local allies. (The date is commemorated in Bangladesh as Martyred Intellectuals Day.)

Bangladesh Liberation War

1964

American Civil Rights Movement: Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that Congress can use the Constitution's Commerce Clause to fight discrimination.

Civil rights movement

1963

The dam containing the Baldwin Hills Reservoir bursts, killing five people and damaging hundreds of homes in Los Angeles, California.

Baldwin Hills Dam disaster

1962

NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.

NASA

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1960

Convention against Discrimination in Education of UNESCO is adopted.

Convention Against Discrimination in Education

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1958

The 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition becomes the first to reach the southern pole of inaccessibility.

3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition

1955

Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania and Spain join the United Nations through United Nations Security Council Resolution 109.

Albania

1948

Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann are granted a patent for their cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game.

Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr.

1942

An Aeroflot Tupolev ANT-20 crashes near Tashkent, killing all 36 people on board.

Aeroflot

1940

Plutonium (specifically Pu-238) is first isolated at Berkeley, California.

Plutonium

1939

Winter War: The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland.

Winter War

1925

Wozzeck, Alban Berg's first opera, is premiered at the Berlin State Opera conducted by Erich Kleiber.

Wozzeck

1918

Friedrich Karl von Hessen, a German prince elected by the Parliament of Finland to become King of Finland, renounces the throne.

Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse

1918

Portuguese President Sidónio Pais is assassinated.

President of Portugal

1918

The 1918 United Kingdom general election occurs, the first where women were permitted to vote. In Ireland the Irish republican political party Sinn Féin wins a landslide victory with nearly 47% of the popular vote.

1918 United Kingdom general election

1918

Giacomo Puccini's comic opera Gianni Schicchi premieres at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Giacomo Puccini

1914

Lisandro de la Torre and others found the Democratic Progressive Party (Partido Demócrata Progresista, PDP) at the Hotel Savoy, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Lisandro de la Torre

1913

Haruna, the fourth and last Kongō-class ship, launches, eventually becoming one of the Japanese workhorses during World War I and World War II.

Japanese battleship Haruna

1911

Roald Amundsen's team, comprising himself, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting, becomes the first to reach the South Pole.

Roald Amundsen

1909

New South Wales Premier Charles Wade signs the Seat of Government Surrender Act 1909, formally completing the transfer of State land to the Commonwealth to create the Australian Capital Territory.

New South Wales

1907

The Thomas W. Lawson, the largest ever ship without a heat engine, runs aground and founders near the Hellweather's Reef within the Isles of Scilly in a gale. The pilot and 15 seamen die.

Thomas W. Lawson (ship)

1903

The Wright brothers make their first attempt to fly with the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Wright brothers

1902

The Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable, from San Francisco to Honolulu.

Commercial Pacific Cable Company

1900

Quantum mechanics: Max Planck presents a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law (quantum theory) at the Physic Society in Berlin.

Quantum mechanics

1800s

1896

The Glasgow Underground Railway is opened by the Glasgow District Subway Company.

Glasgow Subway

1863

American Civil War: The Confederate victory under General James Longstreet at the Battle of Bean's Station in East Tennessee ends the Knoxville Campaign, but achieves very little as Longstreet returns to Virginia next spring.

American Civil War

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1836

The Toledo War unofficially ends as the "Frostbitten Convention" votes to accept Congress' terms for admitting Michigan as a U.S. state.

Toledo War