Browse Historical Events by Day: What Happened on October 14th?

The Battle of Hastings takes place, resulting in William the Conqueror's victory over King Harold II of England. More

English explorer Henry Hudson reaches the river that now bears his name during his search for the Northwest Passage.

The Battle of Vienna takes place, with the Holy League forces defeating the Ottoman Empire and ending their siege of Vienna.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is published. A collection of 12 Sherlock Holmes short stories had been previously published in monthly installments in The Strand Magazine. Arthur Conan Doyle was a large contributor to the magazine with novels, short stories, poems and articles.

Theodore Roosevelt is shot at a hotel in Milwaukee as he was about to start a campaign speech for a third term. The bullet penetrated Roosevelt’s heavy overcoat and ripped through the right side of his chest. Inside the breast pocket were two items that absorbed the impact and undoubtedly saved Roosevelt’s life. The first was a thick fifty-page speech manuscript folded in half. Behind that was a metal eyeglass case in which Roosevelt kept his spectacles. Roosevelt was wounded, finished the speech and was then taken to the hospital. He survived the attack but loss the election for a third term. More

U.S. Air Force Captain Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager piloting the Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis on the world’s first piloted supersonic flight, reaching a speed of Mach 1.06—faster than the speed of sound. The experimental purpose-built aircraft was air launched from the bomb bay of a Boeing B-29 bomber. The Bell X-1 went on to fly 78 times—as fast as Mach 1.45 and as high as 21,900 meters (71,900 feet). More

The Cuban Missile Crisis begins as an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. On Sep 16, the pictures were presented to President Kennedy after they were developed and analyzed by intelligence officers. President Kennedy did not want the Soviet Union and Cuba to know that the missiles had been discovered. He met in secret with his advisors for several days to discuss the problem. On October 22, President Kennedy spoke to the nation about the crisis in a televised address and his decision to place a naval blockade, or a ring of ships, around Cuba. He demanded the removal of the missiles already there and the destruction of the sites.

For thirteen days in October 1962 the world waited—seemingly on the brink of nuclear war—and hoped for a peaceful resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis. More

Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize "for his non-violent struggle for civil rights for the Afro-American population". More

A suicide truck bomb detonates in Baghdad's busy market, killing over 500 people.