THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― NOVEMBER 14

November 14 is the 318th day of the year (319th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 47 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Thursday or Friday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Tuesday or Sunday (56).

NATION SPICY GUACAMOLE DAY 

1770 – James Bruce discovers what he believes to be the source of the Blue Nile.

1862 – American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, leading to the Battle of Fredericksburg.

1889 – Pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) begins a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completes the trip in 72 days.

1918 – Czechoslovakia becomes a republic.

1940 – World War II: In England, Coventry is heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe bombers. Coventry Cathedral is almost completely destroyed.

1941 – World War II: In Slonim, German forces engaged in Operation Barbarossa murder 9,000 Jews in a single day.

1957 – The "Apalachin Meeting" in rural Tioga County in upstate New York is raided by law enforcement; many high level Mafia figures are arrested while trying to flee.

1965 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Ia Drang begins – the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces.

1967 – American physicist Theodore Maiman is given a patent for his ruby laser systems, the world's first laser.

1970 – Southern Airways Flight 932 crashes in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75, including members of the Marshall University football team.

1971 – Mariner 9 enters orbit around Mars.

1979 – Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis.

1982 – Lech Wałęsa, the leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, is released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border.

1990 – After German reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland sign a treaty confirming the Oder–Neisse line as the border between Germany and Poland.

2003 – Astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz discover 90377 Sedna, a Trans-Neptunian object.

2012 – Israel launches a major military operation in the Gaza Strip, as hostilities with Hamas escalate.

2016 – A magnitude 7.5 earthquake strikes New Zealand at 12.02 am NZDT. The epicentre was 15 km north-east of Culverden, North Canterbury, and the earthquake took place at a depth of 15 km. It was followed by a considerable number of aftershocks.

TODAY'S BIRTHS

1719 – Leopold Mozart, Austrian violinist, composer, and conductor; Father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (d. 1787)

1765 – Robert Fulton, American engineer, invented the steamboat (d. 1815)

1840 – Claude Monet, French painter (d. 1926)

1889 – Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st Prime Minister of India (d. 1964)

1900 – Aaron Copland, American composer, conductor, and educator (d. 1990)

1907 – William Steig, American author, illustrator, and sculptor (d. 2003)

1922 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egyptian politician and diplomat, 6th Secretary General of the United Nations (d. 2016)

1934 – Ellis Marsalis, Jr., American pianist and educator

1947 – P. J. O'Rourke, American political satirist and journalist

1948 – Charles, Prince of Wales, (born Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor), first in line to the throne of the United Kingdom

From Wikipedia and Google, except as noted.