August 14 - Events

Events

• 1183 – Taira no Munemori and the Taira clan take the young Emperor Antoku and the three sacred treasures and flee to western Japan to escape pursuit by the Minamoto clan. (Traditional Japanese date: Twenty-fifth Day of the Seventh Month of the Second Year of Juei).
• 1385 – Portuguese Crisis of 1383–1385: Battle of Aljubarrota – Portuguese forces commanded by King John I and his general Nuno Álvares Pereira defeat the Castilian army of King John I.
• 1415 – Henry the Navigator leads Portuguese forces to victory over the Marinids at the Battle of Ceuta.
• 1592 – Imjin War: Battle of Hansan Island Admiral Yi Sun-sin decisively defeats the Japanese Navy at Hansan Island.
• 1598 – Nine Years' War: Battle of the Yellow Ford – Irish forces under Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, defeat an English expeditionary force under Henry Bagenal.
• 1816 – The United Kingdom formally annexed the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, ruling them from the Cape Colony in South Africa.
• 1842 – American Indian Wars: Second Seminole War ends, with the Seminoles forced from Florida to Oklahoma.
• 1848 – Oregon Territory is organized by act of Congress.
• 1880 – Construction of Cologne Cathedral, the most famous landmark in Cologne, Germany, is completed.
• 1885 – Japan's first patent is issued to the inventor of a rust-proof paint.
• 1888 – An audio recording of English composer Arthur Sullivan's "The Lost Chord", one of the first recordings of music ever made, is played during a press conference introducing Thomas Edison's phonograph in London, England.
• 1893 – France becomes the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration.
• 1897 – Franco-Hova Wars: The town of Anosimena is captured by French troops from Menabe defenders in Madagascar.
• 1900 – The Eight-Nation Alliance occupies Beijing, China, in a campaign to end the bloody Boxer Rebellion in China.
• 1901 – The first claimed powered flight, by Gustave Whitehead in his Number 21.
• 1911 – United States Senate leaders agree to rotate the office of President pro tempore of the Senate among leading candidates to fill the vacancy left by William P. Frye's death.
• 1912 – U.S. Marines invade Nicaragua to support the U.S.-backed government installed there after José Santos Zelaya had resigned three years earlier.
• 1916 – Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the Entente in World War I
• 1921 – Tannu Uriankhai, later Tuvan People's Republic is established as a completely independent country (which is supported by Soviet Russia).
• 1933 – Loggers cause a forest fire in the Coast Range of Oregon, later known as the first forest fire of the Tillamook Burn. It is extinguished on September 5, after destroying 240,000 acres (970 km2).
• 1935 – Social Security Act, creating a government pension system for the retired.
• 1936 – Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last public execution in the United States.
• 1937 – Chinese Air Force Day: The beginning of air-to-air combat of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II in general, when 6 Imperial Japanese Mitsubishi G3M bombers are shot down by the Nationalist Chinese Air Force while raiding Chinese air bases.
• 1941 – World War II: Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt sign the Atlantic Charter of war stating postwar aims.
• 1945 – Japan accepts the Allied terms of surrender in World War II and the Emperor records the Imperial Rescript on Surrender (August 15 in Japan Standard Time).
• 1947 – Pakistan gains Independence from the British Empire and joins the Commonwealth of Nations.
• 1959 – Founding and first official meeting of the American Football League.
• 1967 – UK Marine Broadcasting Offences Act declares participation in offshore pirate radio illegal.
• 1969 – Operation Banner: British troops are deployed in Northern Ireland.
• 1971 – Bahrain declares independence as the State of Bahrain.
• 1972 – An East German Ilyushin Il-62 crashes during takeoff from East Berlin, killing 156.
• 1973 – The Pakistani Constitution of 1973 comes into effect.
• 1974 – The second Turkish invasion of Cyprus begins; 140,000 to 200,000 Greek Cypriots become refugees. 6,000 massacred, 1,619 missing.
• 1975 – The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the longest-running release in film history, opens at the USA Theatre in Westwood, Los Angeles, California.
• 1980 – Lech Wałęsa leads strikes at the Gdańsk, Poland shipyards.
• 1987 – All the children held at Kia Lama, a rural property on Lake Eildon, Australia, run by the Santiniketan Park Association, are released after a police raid.
• 1994 – Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, also known as "Carlos the Jackal," is captured.
• 1996 – Greek Cypriot refugee Solomos Solomou is murdered by Turkish forces while trying to climb a flagpole in order to remove a Turkish flag from its mast in the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus.
• 2003 – Widescale power blackout in the northeast United States and Canada.
• 2005 – Helios Airways Flight 522 en route from Larnaca, Cyprus via Athens, Greece to Prague, Czech Republic crashes near Athens, with at least 121 on board. Observations from Greek fighter aircraft indicate a decompression problem.
• 2006 – Chencholai bombing in which 61 Tamil girls are killed in Sri Lankan Airforce bombing.
• 2007 – The 2007 Kahtaniya bombings kills at least 796 people.
• 2010 – The first-ever Youth Olympic Games are held in Singapore.