August 14

1457 –The Mainz Psalter – a volume containing the Book of Psalms – the second book to be printed on movable type, is published by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer

1480 – After falling to a siege by an invading moslem Ottoman army on the 11th of the month, the people of Otranto, Italy who refuse to convert to islam are slaughtered.

1720 – The Spanish military Villasur Expedition is nearly wiped out by Pawnee and Otoe warriors near present day Columbus, Nebraska.

1842 – The Second Seminole War ends, with the Seminoles removed from Florida to the Indian Territory, modern Oklahoma.

1848 – The Oregon Territory is organized by act of Congress.

1851 – John Henry ‘Doc’ Holliday is born in Griffin, Georgia.

1880 – Construction of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Cologne, Germany, begun almost to the day in 1248, is officially completed.

1914 – A French army offensive to recover the province of Moselle from Germany begins

1916 – Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary.

1935 – Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act

1936 – Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last known public execution in the United States.

1945 – Emperor Hirohito records the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the Greater East Asia War and instructs the government to transmit to the Allies the full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration and surrender of Japan. 
A group of Imperial Army officers begin an attempt at a coup d’état to stop the surrender, confiscate the recording and occupy the Imperial Palace.

1959 – The first official meeting of the American Football League is held in Chicago.

1980 – Lech Wałęsa forms the “Solidarność” – Solidarity – trade union and orders a strike at the shipyards in Gdańsk, Poland.

2003 – A widescale power blackout affects the northeast United States and Canada.

2013 – UPS Airlines cargo flight 1354, an Airbus A300, crashes short of the runway at Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport in Alabama, killing both crew members on board.

2015 – The US Embassy in Havana, Cuba reopens after 54 years of being closed when Cuba–United States relations were broken off.

2021 –  President Biden’s plan to quickly withdraw U.S forces from Afghanistan collapses into chaos, as troops are ordered to abandon large quantities materiel, equipment, arms and numerous U.S. citizens and allied Afghans as they retreat to within the perimeter of the Hamid Karzai airport and are surrounded by Taliban forces entering Kabul.