October 14 is the 287th day of the year (288th in Leap years). There are 78 days remaining.
1066 - Norman Conquest: Battle of Hastings - In England on Senlac Hill, seven miles from Hastings, the Norman invasion forces of William the Conqueror defeat the English army and kill King Harold II of England.
1812 - work on London's Regent's Canal starts.
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Bristol Station - Confederate General Robert E. Lee forces fail to drive the Union army out of Virginia.
1912 - While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, former president Theodore Roosevelt is shot by saloonkeeper William Schrank. With a fresh flesh wound and the bullet still in him, Roosevelt still delivers his scheduled speech.
1926 - The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne, is published for the first time.
1944 - World War II: Given the choice between a public treason trial and a certain death by firing squad or suicide with honor, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel chooses the latter.
1947 - Chuck Yeager flies a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, the first man to do so in level flight.
1960 - US presidential candidate John F. Kennedy first suggests the idea for the Peace Corps.
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U-2 flight over Cuba takes photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.
1964 - Leonid Brezhnev becomes general secretary of the CPSU and leader of the Soviet Union, ousting Nikita Khrushchev.
1964 - American civil rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr becomes the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading non-violent resistance to end racial prejudice in the United States.
1966 - The city of Montreal inaugurates its metro system (see Montreal Metro).
1968 - Vietnam War: The United States Department of Defense announces that the United States Army and United States Marines will be sending about 24,000 troops back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours.
1979 - The first gay rights march in the United States takes place in Washington, DC, involving many tens of thousands of people.
1981 - Vice President Hosni Mubarak is elected President of Egypt one week after Anwar Sadat was assassinated.
1987 - 18 month old Jessica McClure ("Baby Jessica") falls down an abandoned well in Midland, Texas (her nationally televised rescue takes 58 hours).
1998 - Eric Robert Rudolph is charged with 6 bombings including the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia.
1906 - Hassan al Banna, founder of Muslim Brotherhood movement.