This Year in History:
2014
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On February 2, 2014, Philip Seymour Hoffman, considered one of the most talented and versatile actors of his generation, dies of a drug overdose at age 46 in New York…
On February 10, 2014, Shirley Temple Black, who as a child in the 1930s became one of Hollywood’s most successful stars, dies at her Woodside, California, home at age 85.…
On February 22, 2014, one of the world’s most‑wanted criminals, Joaquin “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzmán Loera, head of the Sinaloa cartel, the world’s biggest drug trafficking organization, is arrested in…
On February 23, 2014, Brooklyn Nets center Jason Collins becomes the first openly gay athlete to play in a game in the United States’ four major professional leagues. The 35‑year‑old…
On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, loses contact with air traffic control less than an hour after taking off from Kuala…
On March 22, 2014, 43 people die when a portion of a hill suddenly collapses and buries a neighborhood in the small community of Oso, Washington, some 55 miles northeast…
On April 18, 2014, 16 Nepali mountaineering guides, most of them ethnic Sherpas, are killed by an avalanche on Mt. Everest. It was the single deadliest accident in the history…
On April 25, 2014 officials from Flint, Michigan switched the city’s water supply to the Flint River as a cost‑cutting measure for the struggling city. In doing so, they unwittingly…
On May 16, 2014, broadcast journalist and TV personality Barbara Walters retires from ABC News and as co‑host of the daytime program “The View.” In a landmark career that spanned…
On May 29, 2014, Laverne Cox, the transgender actor and advocate best known for her Emmy‑winning performance on Orange Is the New Black, appears on the cover of TIME magazine’s June…
When the clock struck midnight on June 19, 2014, King Juan Carlos I of Spain’s nearly 40‑year reign came to an end. Two weeks after abdicating the Spanish throne amidst…
On July 17, 2014, two New York Police Department officers confront Eric Garner, a 43‑year‑old African American father of six, for illegally selling cigarettes. Garner dies after losing consciousness as…
On July 17, halfway through a flight from Amsterdam to Malaysia, a passenger plane was shot down over the war‑torn Ukraine‑Russia Border. All 298 people on board, most of whom…
On August 9, 2014, police officer Darren Wilson shoots and kills Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Protests and riots ensue in…
Robin Williams, the prolific Oscar‑winning actor and comedian, died by suicide on August 11, 2014. He was 63. On the big screen, Williams, who was born in Chicago in 1951,…
On August 12, 2014, actress Lauren Bacall, who shot to fame in her debut film, 1944’s “To Have and Have Not,” in which she appeared opposite Humphrey Bogart, with whom…
On September 4, 2014, Joan Rivers, one of the best‑known comedians of her era, dies at age 81 in a New York City hospital, a week after she went into…
The podcast Serial, a spinoff of the long‑running radio program This American Life, debuts on October 3, 2014, and quickly becomes a smash hit. Producer Sarah Koenig conceived of the show…
On October 8, 2014, Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with a case of the Ebola Virus Disease in the U.S., dies at age 42 at Texas Health Presbyterian…
One World Trade Center officially opens in Manhattan on November 3, 2014. The new tower, along with the rest of the World Trade Center complex, replaced the Twin Towers and surrounding…
