History of the Day for:
May 14
- 1610: Henry IV of France, the first Bourbon king, was assassinated by religious fanatic Francois Ravaillac.
- 1643: Louis XIV acceded to France's throne at the age of 4 years, 8 months after the death of his father, Louis XIII.
- 1796: Edward Jenner became the first British physician to perform a successful vaccination, inoculating an 8-year-old boy against smallpox.
- 1804: The Lewis and Clark expedition left St. Louis for the Pacific Coast.
- 1811: Paraguay proclaimed its independence from Spain.
- 1853: Gail Borden patented her process for condensed milk.
- 1878: Vaseline was first sold, becoming the registered trademark for petroleum jelly.
- 1904: The first Olympic games held in the U.S. began in St. Louis.
- 1940: Two-thirds of the Dutch city of Rotterdam was destroyed by German bombing, killing almost 1,000 people and leaving 80,000 homeless.
- 1942: The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WACS) was instituted.
- 1944: Gens. Speidel and von Stulpnagel and Field Marshal Rommel tried to assassinate Hitler.
- 1948: Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel an independent state, ending British rule.
- 1955: The Warsaw Pact was signed by the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania.
- 1964: Underground America Day was first observed, urging people to build their homes underground.
- 1969: Canada legalized abortion and contraception.
- 1969: The last Chevrolet Corvair was produced.
- 1970: Harry A. Blackmun was appointed to the Supreme Court.
- 1973: America's Skylab I space laboratory was launched into orbit by the last Saturn Five booster rocket.
- 1973: The Supreme Court ruled that women serving in the armed forces were due the same benefits for their spouses as men received.
- 1980: President Jimmy Carter instituted the Department of Health and Human Services, which replaced the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
- 1989: Tens of thousands demonstrated for democratic reforms in Peking's Tiananmen square.
- 1995: The Dalai Lama proclaimed 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, Tibet's second most senior spiritual leader.
- 2004: The Constitutional Court of South Korea overturns the impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun.
- 2005: The former USS America, a decommissioned supercarrier of the United States Navy, is deliberately sunk in the Atlantic Ocean after four weeks of live-fire exercises. She is the largest ship ever to be disposed of as a target in a military exercise.