14 October in history
8 events that happened on 14 October, from 1066 to 1964.
✦ Anniversary of the day
1322 CE 704 years ago
Robert the Bruce routs Edward II at Old Byland
A Scottish army under Robert the Bruce defeated English forces at Old Byland in Yorkshire, and Edward II narrowly escaped capture. The defeat pushed England towards the truce of 1323.
1548 CE 478 years ago
King Tabinshwehti of Burma begins his invasion of Siam
A Toungoo force of 12,000 led by Tabinshwehti and Bayinnaung invaded Siam through the Three Pagodas Pass and advanced to Ayutthaya. It failed to take the fortified capital, and Siamese counterattacks broke the siege in January 1549.
1586 CE 440 years ago
Mary, Queen of Scots, goes on trial at Fotheringhay
Mary was tried before a commission of English peers and officials at Fotheringhay Castle, accused of plotting Elizabeth I's death in the Babington Plot. Found guilty, she was beheaded in February 1587.
1758 CE 268 years ago
An Austrian army surprises Frederick the Great at Hochkirch
In the Third Silesian War, an Austrian army of 80,000 under Leopold Josef Graf Daun surprised Frederick the Great's Prussian army of 30,000–36,000 at Hochkirch, near Bautzen in Saxony, and forced a general retreat. It was a rare defeat for Frederick.
1890 CE 136 years ago
Dwight D. Eisenhower is born in Texas
Dwight David Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas. He commanded the Allied invasion of Europe in 1944 and served two terms as the 34th US president, warning on leaving office of the 'military-industrial complex'.
1947 CE 79 years ago
Chuck Yeager flies faster than sound
Captain Chuck Yeager piloted the rocket-powered Bell X-1 past Mach 1 high over the Mojave Desert. It was the first confirmed supersonic flight in level flight, opening the age of supersonic aviation.
1964 CE 62 years ago
Soviet leaders oust Nikita Khrushchev
Recalled from holiday, Nikita Khrushchev was forced out by the Communist Party's Central Committee. Leonid Brezhnev succeeded him as party leader and steered the Soviet Union into two decades of stability and stagnation.
Born on 14 October 9
Died on 14 October 3
Dates as the sources give them: in the Julian calendar before 1582, and in some countries for longer (Britain until 1752, Russia until 1918). Only people whose day of birth or death the records agree on are listed.