March 14 in History

The Battle of Mogyoród took place on 14 March 1074. It was an internal conflict between Solomon, King of Hungary and his cousins duke Géza and Ladislaus, who were claiming rights to the throne. Solomon ruled for a few years, during which he allegedly submitted the country to the Holy Roman Empire as a vassal state to ensure his power over the kingdom at fear of his relatives usurping the throne. After a series of campaigns directed against the Byzantine Empire, which were led by Duke Géza and Ladislaus, Solomon grew bitter and felt unappreciated because of their success on the field. This provoked numerous actions of the king on their expense and was eventually followed up by attempts of murder. The princes decided to settle this in a battle and it ended favorably for them thanks to the assistance of Otto I of Brno and his forces, who was married to Euphemia, one of the sisters of Ladislaus and Géza. The injured king fled to Germany soon after the battle and there he aimed to regain the crown with the help of his son-in-law. The outcome of this battle overjoyed all of the nation, since it was regarded as a decisive victory for Hungary's statehood.

The Battle of Ivry was fought on 14 March 1590, during the French Wars of Religion. The battle was a decisive victory for Henry IV of France, leading French royal and English forces against the Catholic League under the Duc de Mayenne and Spanish forces under the Count of Egmont. Henry's forces were victorious and he went on to lay siege to Paris. The battle occurred on the plain of Épieds, Eure near Ivry (later renamed Ivry-la-Bataille), Normandy. Ivry-la-Bataille is located on the river Eure and about thirty miles west of Paris, at the boundary between the Île-de-France and the Beauce regions.

The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from the effects of battle, famine, or disease, with parts of Germany reporting population declines of more than 50%. Related conflicts include the Eighty Years' War, the War of the Mantuan Succession, the Franco–Spanish War, the Torstenson War, the Dutch–Portuguese War, and the Portuguese Restoration War.

Otto von Guericke was a German scientist, inventor, mathematician, and physicist. His pioneering scientific work, the development of experimental methods and repeatable demonstrations on the physics of the vacuum, atmospheric pressure, electrostatic repulsion, his advocacy for the reality of "action at a distance" and of "absolute space" were noteworthy contributions for the advancement of the Scientific Revolution.

The Third Anglo-Dutch War, began on 27 March 1672, and concluded on 19 February 1674. A naval conflict between the Dutch Republic and England, in alliance with France, it is considered a related conflict of the wider 1672 to 1678 Franco-Dutch War. In the 1670 Secret Treaty of Dover, Charles II of England agreed to support an attack by Louis XIV of France on the Dutch Republic. By doing so, Louis hoped to gain control of the Spanish Netherlands, while Charles sought to restore the damage to his prestige caused by the 1667 Raid on the Medway. Under the treaty, Charles also received secret payments which he hoped would make him financially independent of Parliament. The French offensive in May and June 1672 quickly overran most of the Republic, with the exception of the core province of Holland, where they were halted by water defences. In early June, the Anglo-French fleet was badly damaged by the Dutch under Michiel de Ruyter at the Battle of Solebay. Shortly thereafter, Johan de Witt resigned as Grand Pensionary, and Charles' nephew William III of Orange was appointed Stadtholder. William rebuffed attempts by Charles to make peace, knowing the French alliance was unpopular in England, while French success brought him support from Emperor Leopold and Spain. By the end of 1672, the Dutch had regained much of the territory lost in May, and with hopes of a quick victory gone, Parliament refused to continue funding the war. Between June and July 1673, the Dutch and Anglo-French fleets fought four separate battles, which ended any prospect of an English landing. The English merchant fleet meanwhile suffered heavy losses to Dutch privateers. In addition, Louis now focused on taking the Spanish Netherlands, an objective as harmful to English interests as it was to Dutch. The resulting increase in domestic opposition forced Charles to agree the Second Peace of Westminster in February 1674.

Admiral of the Blue John Byng (baptised 29 October 1704 – 14 March 1757) was a Royal Navy officer and politician who was court-martialled and executed by firing squad. After joining the navy at the age of thirteen, he participated at the Battle of Cape Passaro in 1718. Over the next thirty years he built up a reputation as a solid naval officer and received promotion to vice-admiral in 1747. He also served as Commodore-Governor of Newfoundland Colony in 1742, Commander-in-Chief, Leith, 1745 to 1746 and was a member of Parliament from 1751 until his death. Byng failed to relieve a besieged British garrison during the Battle of Minorca at the beginning of the Seven Years' War. He had sailed for Minorca at the head of a hastily assembled fleet of vessels, some of which were in poor condition. In the ensuing battle with a French Royal Navy squadron of ships off the Minorcan coast, he was defeated and the fleet under his command considerably damaged. He then elected to withdraw to Gibraltar to repair his ships. Upon return to Britain, Byng was court-martialled and found guilty of breaching the 12th Article of War in failing to "do his utmost" to prevent Minorca from falling to the French. He was sentenced to death and, after pleas for clemency were denied, was shot dead by a firing squad on 14 March 1757.

The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence or simply the American Revolution, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and, commanded by George Washington, defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation. In 1763, after the British Empire gained dominance in North America following its victory over the French in the Seven Years' War, tensions and disputes began escalating between the British and the Thirteen Colonies, especially following passage of the Stamp and Townshend Acts. The British Army responded by seeking to occupy Boston militarily, leading to the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. In mid-1774, with tensions escalating even further between the British Army and the colonies, the British Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts, an attempt to disarm Americans, leading to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the first battles of the Revolutionary War. In June 1775, the Second Continental Congress voted to incorporate colonial-based Patriot militias into a central military, the Continental Army, and unanimously appointed Washington its commander-in-chief. Two months later, in August 1775, George III declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion. In July 1776, the Second Continental Congress formalized the war, passing the Lee Resolution on July 2, and, two days later, unanimously adopting the Declaration of Independence, on July 4. In March 1776, in an early win for the newly-formed Continental Army under Washington's command, following a successful siege of Boston, the Continental Army successfully drove the British Army out of Boston. British commander in chief William Howe responded by launching the New York and New Jersey campaign, which resulted in Howe's capture of New York City in November. Washington responded by clandestinely crossing the Delaware River and winning small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton. In the summer of 1777, as Howe was poised to capture Philadelphia, the Continental Congress fled to Baltimore. In October 1777, a separate northern British force under the command of John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga in an American victory that proved crucial in convincing France and Spain that an independent United States was a viable possibility. France signed a commercial agreement with the revolutionaries, followed by a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition undertook a scorched earth campaign against British-allied factions of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also Iroquois). Native American raids on the American frontier, however, continued to be a problem. Also, in 1779, Spain allied with France against Great Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez, though Spain did not formally ally with the Americans. Howe's replacement Henry Clinton intended to take the war against the Americans into the Southern Colonies. Despite some initial success, British General Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American army in Yorktown, Virginia, in September and October 1781. The French navy cut off Cornwallis's escape and he was forced to surrender in October. The British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, but fighting largely ceased in North America. In the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, Great Britain acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States, bringing the American Revolutionary War to an end. The Treaties of Versailles resolved Great Britain's conflicts with France and Spain, and forced Great Britain to cede Tobago, Senegal, and small territories in India to France, and Menorca, West Florida, and East Florida to Spain.

Eli Whitney Jr. (December 8, 1765 – January 8, 1825) was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin in 1793, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South. Whitney's invention made upland short cotton into a profitable crop, which strengthened the economic foundation of slavery in the United States and prolonged the institution. Despite the social and economic impact of his invention, Whitney lost much of his profits in legal battles over patent infringement for the cotton gin. Thereafter, he turned his attention to securing contracts with the government in the manufacture of muskets for the newly formed United States Army. He continued making arms and inventing until his death in 1825.

Gioachino Rossini's Petite messe solennelle was written in 1863, possibly at the request of Count Alexis Pillet-Will for his wife Louise, to whom it is dedicated. The composer, who had retired from composing operas more than 30 years before, described it as "the last of my péchés de vieillesse".

The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. By the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera. The Mikado is the most internationally successful Savoy opera and has been especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. The Mikado is a satire of late 19th-century British institutions, society and politics. By setting the opera in a fantasy Japan, an exotic locale far away from contemporary Britain, Gilbert was able to satirise British politics more freely and soften the impact of his criticisms of British social institutions, in a similar way that he used other "foreign" settings in Princess Ida, The Gondoliers, Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke. Nevertheless, some 21st-century productions of the opera in the United States have drawn criticism for promoting stereotypes of East Asians.

The Gold Standard Act was an Act of the United States Congress, signed by President William McKinley and effective on March 14, 1900, defining the United States dollar by gold weight and requiring the United States Treasury to redeem, on demand and in gold coin only, paper currency the Act specified. The Act formalized the American gold standard that the Coinage Act of 1873, which demonetized silver, and the Resumption Act of 1875, which made all legal tender notes redeemable in gold at the Treasury, had established by default. Before and after the Act, silver currency including silver certificates and the silver dollar circulated at face value as fiat currency not redeemable for gold. The Act fixed the value of one dollar at 25.8 grains of 90% pure gold, equivalent to about $20.67 per troy ounce, very near its historic value. American circulating gold coins of the period comprised an alloy of 90% gold and 10% copper for durability. After the realigning 1932 United States elections following the onset of the Great Depression, the gold standard was abandoned from March 1933, and the Act abrogated, by a coordinated series of policy changes including executive orders by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, new laws, and U.S. Supreme Court rulings known as the Gold Clause Cases narrowly upheld the Roosevelt administration's policies. After World War II international agreements comprising the Bretton Woods system formally restored foreign central banks' ability to exchange United States dollars for gold at a fixed price. World trade growth increasingly stressed this system, which was abandoned in the Nixon shock of 1971. Attempts to reform the Bretton Woods system quickly proved unworkable and failed. All modern currencies thus became fiat currencies freely floating and subject to market forces despite capital controls imposed by some central banks, with gold as a commodity.

Heber Manning Wells (August 11, 1859 – March 12, 1938) was an American politician and banker who served as the first governor of the State of Utah. Utah gained statehood on January 4, 1896; Wells served as governor from January 6, 1896, until January 2, 1905.

The Battle of Verdun (French: Bataille de Verdun [bataj də vɛʁdœ̃]; German: Schlacht um Verdun [ʃlaxt ʔʊm ˈvɛɐ̯dœ̃]) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north of Verdun. The German 5th Army attacked the defences of the Fortified Region of Verdun (RFV, Région Fortifiée de Verdun) and those of the French Second Army on the right (east) bank of the Meuse. Using the experience of the Second Battle of Champagne in 1915, the Germans planned to capture the Meuse Heights, an excellent defensive position, with good observation for artillery-fire on Verdun. The Germans hoped that the French would commit their strategic reserve to recapture the position and suffer catastrophic losses at little cost to the German infantry. Poor weather delayed the beginning of the attack until 21 February but the Germans captured Fort Douaumont four days later. The advance then slowed for several days, despite inflicting many French casualties. By 6 March, 20+1⁄2 French divisions were in the RFV and a more extensive defence in depth had been organised. Philippe Pétain ordered there to be no retreat and that German attacks were to be counter-attacked, despite this exposing French infantry to the German artillery. By 29 March, French guns on the west bank had begun a constant bombardment of Germans on the east bank, causing many infantry casualties. The German offensive was extended to the west bank of the Meuse to gain observation and eliminate the French artillery firing over the river but the attacks failed to reach their objectives. In early May, the Germans changed tactics again and made local attacks and counter-attacks; the French recaptured part of Fort Douaumont but the Germans ejected them and took many prisoners. The Germans tried alternating their attacks on either side of the Meuse and in June captured Fort Vaux. The Germans advanced towards the last geographical objectives of the original plan, at Fleury-devant-Douaumont and Fort Souville, driving a salient into the French defences. Fleury was captured and the Germans came within 2.5 mi (4 km) of the Verdun citadel but in July the offensive was limited to provide troops, artillery and ammunition for the Battle of the Somme, leading to a similar transfer of the French Tenth Army to the Somme front. From 23 June to 17 August, Fleury changed hands sixteen times and a German attack on Fort Souville failed. The offensive was reduced further but to keep French troops away from the Somme, ruses were used to disguise the change. In September and December, French counter-offensives recaptured much ground on the east bank and recovered Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux. The battle lasted for 302 days, one of the longest and costliest in human history. In 2000, Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann calculated that the French suffered 377,231 casualties and the Germans 337,000, a total of 714,231 and an average of 70,000 a month. In 2014, William Philpott wrote of 714,000 casualties suffered by both sides during the Battle of Verdun in 1916 and that about 1,250,000 casualties were suffered in the vicinity of Verdun in the war. In France, the battle came to symbolise the determination of the French Army and the destructiveness of the war.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various militant organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dominantly Catholic and dedicated to the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic free from British colonial rule.

Charlie Daly (10 August 1896 – 14 March 1923), born in Castlemaine, County Kerry, was the second son of Con. W. Daly, of Knockaneacoolteen, Firies, County Kerry. He went to school, first to Ballyfinnane National School, and later to the Christian Brothers at Tralee. Daly had been an active member of the Irish Volunteers from 1913 (before the Easter Rising). Under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 he was incarcerated at Cork Male Prison 1918–1919 for unlawful assembly; specifically for "throwing stones at the police". In his wound pension application of 1937 IRA leader George Lennon noted Daly as the Officer Commanding (O/C) the prisons No. 10 Wing. A "smash up strike" in the jail resulted in solitary confinement and ill treatment for the men. Charlie Daly rose to the rank of Commandant General in the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Daly was the O/C the IRA's Second Northern Division during the critical time period before the Partition of Ireland. Accompanied by IRA leaders Liam Lynch and George Lennon he was at the Mansion House on 7 January 1922 when a slim majority of seven voted to accept the Treaty. Daly subsequently took the anti-treaty side in the Irish Civil War and was executed (in retaliation) on orders from the newly formed Irish Free State government.

The El Virilla train accident occurred in Costa Rica on 14 March 1926, when an overcrowded train carrying mostly farmers and laborers derailed while crossing a bridge across the Virilla River Canyon, killing 385 and injuring 93. The train was a special service booked on a Sunday for a religious pilgrimage from Alajuela and Heredia to Cartago where most intended to visit the stone figurine of the La Negrita at the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Los Ángeles, which supposedly has great healing powers. The pilgrimage was arranged by Professor Francisco Gomez Alizago, to raise money for a home for the elderly. The tickets were inscribed "For the benefit of the elderly of Cartago". A six-carriage train was arranged for the trip but proved grossly inadequate as the offer proved to be popular and was greatly over subscribed; no limit being placed on the sale of tickets with over a thousand being sold. At 7 am, three carriages arrived at Alajuela and left 30 minutes later. Further stops were made and three more carriages were added at Heredia. Despite this many people were unable to board the train, and it even skipped a later stop as it was too crowded to allow any more on. At 8:20 the train began to cross the bridge which lay on a left-hand curve. A combination of a poorly fastened rail and the excessive weight of the train caused the last carriage to derail and pulled two further carriages from the track, one of which plunged 190 feet (58 m) to the river below, killing 385, including Professor Alizago. The rescue work continued into the evening. Several trains returned to Alajuela and Heredia with the bodies which were left at the stations for identification by friends and families. The government declared three days of national mourning; flags flew at half mast; cinemas, bars and other places of entertainment were closed.

Alam Ara (transl. Ornament of the World) is a 1931 Indian historical fantasy film directed and produced by Ardeshir Irani. It revolves around a king and his two wives, Navbahaar and Dilbahaar, who are childless; soon, a fakir (Wazir Muhammad Khan) tells the king that the former wife will give birth to a boy, later named Qamar (Master Vithal), but the child will die following his 18th birthday if Navbahaar cannot find the necklace he asks for. Meanwhile, the king finds out that Dilbahaar has fallen for the senapati Adil (Prithviraj Kapoor), leading the king to arrest him and evict his pregnant wife, who later gives birth to Alam Ara (Zubeida). Irani was inspired to make Alam Ara after watching the 1929 American part-talkie Show Boat. The story was adapted from the Bombay-based dramatist Joseph David's play of the same name. Made on a budget of ₹40,000 (equivalent to ₹13 million or US$140,000 in 2026), principal photography was handled by Adi M. Irani within four months in Bombay. Because the studio was located near a railway track, it was filmed mostly during the nighttime to avoid noise from the active trains. Following the filming, Ardeshir Irani finished the sound recording, using the single-system recording. Firozshah Mistry and B. Irani served as the music directors. Alam Ara was released on 14 March 1931 and performed well at the box office. Critics were appreciative, with the performance and songs getting the most attention, though there was some criticism of the sound recording. The film was also widely considered a major breakthrough for the Indian film industry and Ardeshir Irani's career with its status as the country's first sound film. Although no print or gramophone record of the film is known to survive, making it a lost film, surviving artefacts include its stills and posters. In 2017, the British Film Institute declared it as the most important of any lost films produced in India.

Slovakia, officially the (First) Slovak Republic, and from 14 March until 21 July 1939 officially known as the Slovak State (Slovak: Slovenský štát), was a partially recognized client state of Nazi Germany which existed between 14 March 1939 and 4 April 1945 in Central Europe. The Slovak part of Czechoslovakia declared independence with German support one day before the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia. It controlled most of the territory of present-day Slovakia, without its current southern parts, which were ceded by Czechoslovakia to Hungary in 1938. It was the first formally independent Slovak state in history. Bratislava was the capital city. A one-party state governed by the far-right Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, the Slovak Republic is primarily known for its collaboration with Nazi Germany, which included sending troops to the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the Soviet Union in 1941. In 1940, the country joined the Axis when its leaders signed the Tripartite Pact. The local Jewish population (according to 1930 census Slovak part of Czechoslovakia had 136,737 Jewish inhabitants, before the loss of Slovak territory to Hungary) was heavily persecuted, with almost 69,000 Jews being murdered or deported (two-thirds of the 89,000 Slovak Jewish population). In 1942, the country deported 58,000 Jews to German-occupied Poland, paying Germany 500 Reichsmarks for each deportee. Internal opposition to the government's policies culminated in the Slovak National Uprising in 1944, itself triggered by the Nazi German occupation of the country. Although the uprising was eventually suppressed, partisan resistance continued. The Slovak Republic was abolished after the Soviet conquest in 1945, and its territory was reintegrated into the recreated Third Czechoslovak Republic. The current Slovak Republic does not consider itself a successor state of the wartime Slovak Republic, instead a successor to the Czechoslovak Federal Republic. However, some nationalists celebrate 14 March as a day of independence.

Penicillins are a group of β-lactam antibiotics originally obtained from Penicillium moulds, principally P. chrysogenum and P. rubens. Eight species of Penicillium, in the section Chrysogena, produce penicillins. Most penicillins in clinical use are synthesised by P. chrysogenum using deep tank fermentation and then purified. A number of natural penicillins have been discovered, but only two purified compounds are in clinical use: penicillin G and penicillin V. Penicillins were among the first medications to be effective against many bacterial infections caused by staphylococci and streptococci. They are still widely used today for various bacterial infections, though many types of bacteria have developed resistance following extensive use.

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, approximately two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek death camps in occupied Poland. Concurrent Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to include the murder and persecution of non-Jewish groups, such as the Romani and Soviet POWs.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918 through the merger of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Following the Allied victory over the Central Powers in 1918, they emerged as the largest air force in the world. Since its formation, they have played a significant role in British military history. In particular, during the Second World War, they defeated the German Luftwaffe's efforts to establish air superiority over Great Britain during the Battle of Britain, and played a key role in the Combined Bomber Offensive alongside the USAAF.

The Korean War was an armed conflict fought on the Korean Peninsula between North Korea and South Korea and their allies. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea was supported by the United Nations led by the United States under the auspices of the United Nations Command (UNC).

The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is a part of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and is one of the six armed forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the Air Force was established by transfer of personnel from the Army Air Forces with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.

Jack Leon Ruby (born Jacob Rubenstein; c. March 25, 1911 – January 3, 1967) was an American nightclub owner. He murdered Lee Harvey Oswald two days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He was born in Chicago, and operated nightclubs in Texas. Oswald had been arrested for Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Texas. On November 24, 1963, two days after the assassination, Ruby shot and fatally wounded Oswald in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters, and was immediately arrested. The shooting was captured on live television. In March 1964, he was convicted and sentenced to death for Oswald's murder. The conviction was overturned on appeal in 1966, and Ruby was granted a new trial, but he fell ill, was diagnosed with cancer, and died of a pulmonary embolism on January 3, 1967. In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that there was no evidence Jack Ruby was part of a conspiracy. Despite this, Ruby's killing of Oswald has stoked John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43 years, and the first Catholic president. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the United States Congress before his presidency. Born into the prominent Kennedy family in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1940, joining the U.S. Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, he commanded PT boats in the Pacific theater. Kennedy's survival following the sinking of PT-109 and his rescue of his fellow sailors made him a war hero and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, but left him with serious injuries. After a brief stint in journalism, Kennedy represented a working-class Boston district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate, serving as the junior senator from Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960. While in the Senate, Kennedy published his book Profiles in Courage, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Kennedy ran in the 1960 presidential election. His campaign gained momentum after the first televised presidential debates in American history, and he was elected president, narrowly defeating Republican opponent Richard Nixon, the incumbent vice president. Kennedy's presidency saw high tensions with communist states in the Cold War. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam, and the Strategic Hamlet Program began during his presidency. In 1961, he authorized attempts to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and Operation Mongoose. In October 1962, U.S. spy planes discovered Soviet missile bases had been deployed in Cuba. The resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in nuclear war. In August 1961, after East German troops erected the Berlin Wall, Kennedy sent an army convoy to reassure West Berliners of U.S. support, and delivered one of his most famous speeches in West Berlin in June 1963. In 1963, Kennedy signed the first nuclear weapons treaty. He presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps, Alliance for Progress with Latin America, and the continuation of the Apollo program with the goal of landing a man on the Moon before 1970. He supported the civil rights movement but was only somewhat successful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. His vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, assumed the presidency. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination, but Jack Ruby shot and killed him two days later. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Warren Commission both concluded Oswald had acted alone, but conspiracy theories about the assassination persist. After Kennedy's death, Congress enacted many of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Revenue Act of 1964. He ranks highly in polls of U.S. presidents with historians and the general public. His personal life has been the focus of considerable sustained interest following public revelations in the 1970s of his chronic health ailments and extramarital affairs. Kennedy is the most recent U.S. president to have died in office.

On 14 March 1972, Sterling Airways Flight 296 crashed into a mountain ridge on approach to Dubai in Al Hayl, Fujariah. Flight 296 was a charter flight from Colombo to Copenhagen with stops in Bombay, Dubai, and Ankara. All 112 passengers and crew on board died in the crash which was attributed to pilot error. The flight was operated by a Sud Aviation Caravelle, registration OY-STL. To date, it is the deadliest air disaster to involve a Caravelle and the deadliest air disaster in history in United Arab Emirates along with Gulf Air Flight 771 which also had 112 fatalities.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; Hebrew: צְבָא הֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, romanized: , lit. 'Army for the Defense of Israel'), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym Tzahal (צה״ל), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and the Israeli Navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security apparatus. The IDF is headed by the chief of the general staff, who is subordinate to the defense minister. On the orders of first prime minister David Ben-Gurion, the IDF was formed on 26 May 1948 and began to operate as a conscript military, drawing its initial recruits from the already existing paramilitaries of the Yishuv—namely Haganah, the Irgun, and Lehi. It was formed shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence and has participated in every armed conflict involving Israel. In the wake of the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty and the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, the IDF underwent a significant strategic realignment. Previously spread across various fronts—Lebanon and Syria in the north, Jordan and Iraq in the east, and Egypt in the south—the IDF redirected its focus towards southern Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. In 2000, the IDF withdrew from Southern Lebanon and in 2005 from Gaza. Conflict between Israel and Islamist groups based in Gaza, notably Hamas, has continued since then. Moreover, notable Israeli–Syrian border incidents have occurred frequently since 2011, due to regional instability caused by the Syrian civil war. Since 1967, the IDF has maintained a close security relationship with the United States, including in research and development cooperation, with joint efforts on the F-15I and the Arrow defence system, among others. The IDF is believed to have maintained an operational nuclear weapons capability since 1967, possibly possessing between 80 and 400 nuclear warheads. The IDF's actions and policies in the Palestinian territories have faced widespread criticism, with accusations of repression, institutionalized discrimination, unlawful killings and systematic abuses of Palestinian rights, with multiple human rights organizations and scholars accusing the IDF of genocide.

Alia Royal Jordanian Flight 600 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Marka International Airport, Jordan, to Seeb International Airport, Muscat, Oman, via Doha International Airport in Qatar. On the night of 13 March 1979, the Boeing 727 operating the flight was carrying out a missed approach to Doha's Runway 34 when it flew into a downburst, causing the aircraft to crash onto the runway, flip over and slide tail-first into a fire station, killing 41 passengers and 4 crew. However, there were also 19 survivors from those on board. The crash remains the deadliest aviation accident in the history of Qatar.

LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007 was an Ilyushin Il-62 that crashed near Warsaw-Okecie Airport in Poland, on 14 March 1980, as the crew aborted a landing and attempted to go-around, killing all 77 passengers and 10 crew members on board. It was caused by the disintegration of a turbine disc in one of the plane's engines, leading to uncontained engine failure. The turbine shaft was later found to have manufacturing faults.

The Johnson South Reef skirmish took place on 14 March 1988 between military forces of China and Vietnam, on the Johnson South Reef in the Union Banks region of the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea.

Escondida is a large open-pit copper mine at 3,100 m (10,200 ft) elevation in the Atacama Desert in Antofagasta Region, Chile. It has for decades been one of world's most productive copper mines and is the mine that leads in copper and gold production in Chile. In 2019 it was estimated that the mine and its ancillary industries generated 2.5% of Chile's GDP. The mine's produce is largely exported to China as ore concentrate that contained as of 2020 an estimate of 4% chalcopyrite, 35% chalcocite and 46% pyrite.

Norman Earl Thagard is an American scientist and former U.S. Marine Corps officer and naval aviator and NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of five space flights and on March 14, 1995, he became the first American to ride to space on board a Russian vehicle, the Soyuz TM-21 spacecraft for the Russian Mir-18 mission.

The 2006 Chadian coup attempt was an attempted coup d'état against Chadian President Idriss Déby that was foiled on the night of March 14, 2006.

Violence erupted in Nandigram, West Bengal, India, in 2007 due to the land acquisition for a project taken up by the Left Front-led Government of West Bengal to create a chemical hub, a type of special economic zone (SEZ). The policy led to an emergency in the region, and 14 people died in a police shooting.

The 2008 Tibetan unrest, also referred to as the 2008 Tibetan uprising in Tibetan media, was a series of protests and demonstrations that initially occurred over the Chinese Communist Party's treatment and persecution of Tibetans. Protests in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, by monks and nuns on 10 March have been viewed as the start of the demonstrations. Numerous protests and demonstrations were held to commemorate the 49th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising Day, when the 14th Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet. The protests and demonstrations spread spontaneously to a number of monasteries and throughout the Tibetan plateau, including into counties located outside the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Intense Tropical Cyclone Idai was one of the costliest and deadliest tropical cyclones on record to affect Africa and the Southern Hemisphere. The long-lived storm caused catastrophic damage, and a humanitarian crisis in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, leaving more than 1,500 people dead and many more missing. Idai is the deadliest tropical cyclone recorded in the South-West Indian Ocean basin. In the Southern Hemisphere, which includes the Australian, South Pacific, and South Atlantic basins, Idai ranks as the second-deadliest tropical cyclone on record. The only system with a higher death toll is the 1973 Flores cyclone that killed 1,650 off the coast of Indonesia. Idai is also the second costliest tropical cyclone in the South-West Indian Ocean basin, behind Cyclone Chido of 2024.