History of the Day for:
December 14
- 1774: Warned by Paul Revere of a British plan to station troops at Portsmouth, N.H., a group of Massachusetts militiamen successfully attacked the arsenal of Fort William and Mary.
- 1793: The first state road was authorized, from Frankfurt, Ky., to Cincinnati.
- 1798: David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented a nut & bolt machine.
- 1799: George Washington died at his Mount Vernon home at age 67.
- 1819: Alabama was admitted to the Union as the 22nd U.S. state.
- 1901: The first table tennis tournament was held at the London Royal Aquarium.
- 1911: Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole.
- 1915: Jack Johnson became the first black world heavyweight boxing champion.
- 1944: Congress established the rank of General of the Army (five-star general).
- 1945: Josef Kramer, known as "the beast of Belsen," and 10 others were hanged in Hamelin for crimes committed at the Belsen and Auschwitz Nazi concentration camps.
- 1953: The Brooklyn Dodgers signed pitcher Sandy Koufax.
- 1961: Jimmy Dean's "Big Bad John" became the first country music song to get an official gold record from the Recording Industry Association of America after hitting No. 1 on both the country and pop charts.
- 1963: Singer Dinah Washington, 39, died of an overdose of sleeping pills in Detroit.
- 1967: DNA was created in a test tube.
- 1969: The Jackson Five made their first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," singing their first hit, "I Want You Back."
- 1977: "Saturday Night Fever,"starring John Travolta, premiered in New York City.
- 1981: Israel annexed the Golan Heights, which it had seized from Syria in the war in 1967.
- 1984: Howard Cosell retired from Monday Night Football.
- 1987: Chrysler pleaded no contest to federal charges of selling several thousand vehicles as new even though they had been driven by employees with the odometers disconnected.
- 1990: The Right to Die case permits Nancy Cruzan to have her feeding tube removed. She dies 12 days later.
- 1995: Yugoslav Wars: The Dayton Agreement is signed in Paris by leaders of various governments.
- 2003: President of Pakistan Pervez Musharaf narrowly escapes an assassination attempt.
- 2003: President George W. Bush announces the capture of Saddam Hussein.
- 2004: The Millau viaduct, the highest bridge in the world, near Millau, France is officially opened.
- 2004: Cuba and Venezuela founded the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.
- 2008: President George W. Bush made his fourth and final (planned) trip to Iraq as president and almost got struck by two shoes thrown at him by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi during a farewell conference in Baghdad.