October 14
Today in America's Present Past
1644 | Pennsylvania founder William Penn was born.
1734 | Founder Francis Lightfoot Lee was born.
1774 | Congress: Continental Congress makes a Declaration of Colonial Rights.
1790 Founder William Hooper died.
1834 | Henry Blair files a patent, the first African-American to do so.
1834 | In Philadelphia, Moyamensing Township, an election riot breaks out.
1857 | Entrepreneur Elwood Haynes was born.
1863 | Civil War: Battle at Bristoe Station, Virginia.
1882 | Irish Republic founder Eamon de Valera was born in New York.
1884 | Entrepreneur George Eastman patents paper-strip film.
1890 | POTUS: President Dwight D. Eisenhower was born.
1894 | Poet E. E. Cummings was born.
1900 | Statistician W. Edwards Deming was born.
1906 | Philosopher Hannah Arendt was born.
1911 | SCOTUS: Justice John Marshall Harlan I died.
1912 | POTUS: Theodore Roosevelt, while campaigning on the Bull Moose Party platform for President, is wounded by a gunman but survives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1919 | Admiral Edward L. Feightner was born.
1925 | Cheerleading founder Lawrence Herkimer was born in Muskegon, Michigan.
1931 | Louisiana Lt. Governor Paul Cyr was sworn in when Governor Huey Long was out of the state. Long used the National Guard to reoccupy the Governor’s mansion.
1938 | Lawyer John Dean was born.
1939 | Designer Ralph Lauren was born.
1947 | Aviator Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier in the Bell XS-1.
1949 | Civil Rights: 14 leaders of the U.S. Communist Party are convicted of sedition.
1949 | Poet Katha Pollitt was born.
1953 | POTUS: Republican President Eisenhower promises to fire any federal worker taking the 5th amendment with regard to communist party affiliation.
1959 | Actor Errol Flynn died.
1960 | POTUS: Democrat President Kennedy proposed the Peace Corps.
1962 | Cold War: U.S. U-2 planes identify missiles in Cuba.
1964 | Civil Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1975 | POTUS: Republican President Ford escapes injury when his limousine is struck broadside.
1976 | Economist Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize.
1977 | Entertainer Bing Crosby died.
1978 | Musician Usher was born.
1979 | The first Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C.
1982 | POTUS: Republican President Reagan proclaims a War on Drugs.
1983 | War on Terror: Marine peacekeeper Sgt Allen Soifert killed by a sniper in Beirut, Lebanon.
1986 | Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
1987 | In Midland, TX, 1½-year-old Jessica McClure falls 22 feet down a well and is rescued 58 hours later.
1990 | Composer Leonard Bernstein died.
1993 | Activist Charlie Kirk was born.
1997 | Author Harold Robbins died.
2017 | Poet Richard Wilbur died.
2019 | Author Harold Bloom died.
2024 | Psychologist Philip Zimbardo died.