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Explore 14 January

Explore 14 January: Afghan and Maratha armies meet at Panipat, Denmark hands Norway to Sweden at Kiel, Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Casablanca and Tunisia’s president flees as the Arab Spring begins. Meet Albert Schweitzer, Yukio Mishima and Faye Dunaway, born on 14 January.

This day through time →10 verified events across 4 eras

⌛10Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙7Born
Today ✦6Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ☆1Sporting
Moments ♫2Culture
Stories ☉1Observances
The Third Battle of Panipat in a Faizabad-style drawing of about 1770, with the lines of guns firing at each other across the field.
The Third Battle of Panipat in a Faizabad-style drawing of about 1770, with the lines of guns firing at each other across the field.
Image creditAnonymousUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1761

Afghans and Marathas fight the Third Battle of Panipat

By the 1750s the Mughal empire had crumbled and the Marathas, from western India, had become the strongest power in the subcontinent, pushing north as far as the Punjab. There they collided with Ahmad Shah Durrani, ruler of Afghanistan, who had invaded India several times.

On 14 January 1761 the two armies met at Panipat, about 80 kilometres north of Delhi, after weeks facing each other. The Marathas under Sadashiv Rao Bhau gained ground at first, but the Afghans threw in fresh cavalry in the afternoon and broke them. Tens of thousands died in the battle and the slaughter that followed. The defeat halted Maratha expansion and left the way open for the British East India Company.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Third Battle of Panipat ↗
The Treaty of Kiel in its bound original, held by the Danish National Archives (Rigsarkivet).
The Treaty of Kiel in its bound original, held by the Danish National Archives (Rigsarkivet).
Image creditRigsarkivet - Danish National Archives · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
1814

Denmark hands Norway to Sweden at Kiel

Denmark and Norway had shared a king for more than four hundred years. In the Napoleonic Wars Denmark stayed loyal to France, and after Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig in 1813 Sweden, led by its crown prince, the former French marshal Bernadotte, invaded Denmark from the south.

At Kiel on 14 January 1814 Denmark made peace and gave Norway to the king of Sweden, keeping only the old Norwegian islands of Greenland, Iceland and the Faroes. The Norwegians refused to be handed over: they wrote their own constitution at Eidsvoll that May. After a short war they accepted union with Sweden, but kept their constitution, and in 1905 Norway became fully independent.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Treaty of Kiel ↗
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, seated, with their Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Casablanca Conference, January 1943.
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, seated, with their Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Casablanca Conference, January 1943.
Image creditNational Museum of the U.S. Navy · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1943

Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Casablanca

Two months after Allied troops landed in French North Africa, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with their military chiefs at Anfa, outside Casablanca in Morocco, to plan the next stage of the war. The conference opened on 14 January 1943 and lasted ten days.

They agreed to invade Sicily once North Africa was won, to step up the bombing of Germany and to keep up the fight against the U-boats in the Atlantic. At a press conference on the last day, Roosevelt announced that the Allies would accept nothing less than the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US Office of the Historian: the Casablanca Conference, 1943 ↗
A protester holds a sign reading 'Ben Ali dehors' (Ben Ali out) outside the Interior Ministry on Avenue Habib Bourguiba, Tunis, on 14 January 2011.
A protester holds a sign reading ‘Ben Ali dehors’ (Ben Ali out) outside the Interior Ministry on Avenue Habib Bourguiba, Tunis, on 14 January 2011.
Image creditSkotch 79 · CC0Resized and cropped for display.
2011

Tunisia’s president flees and the Arab Spring begins

In December 2010 Mohamed Bouazizi, a young street trader in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire in protest after officials seized his goods. His act set off demonstrations against unemployment, corruption and the police state of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled since 1987. They spread across the country despite a violent crackdown.

On 14 January 2011, as huge crowds filled the centre of Tunis, Ben Ali gave up and flew into exile in Saudi Arabia. The uprising, often called the Jasmine Revolution, inspired protests across the Arab world within weeks. Tunisia went on to hold free elections and adopt a new constitution in 2014.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Jasmine Revolution ↗
♙
PEOPLE

Born Today

Albert Schweitzer
Image creditUnknownUnknown · CC BY-SA 3.0 deResized and cropped for display.
Born 1875

Albert Schweitzer

Alsatian doctor, theologian and organist who ran a hospital in Gabon and won the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize.

John Dos Passos
Image creditUnknown · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1896

John Dos Passos

American novelist of the U.S.A. trilogy.

Yukio Mishima
Image creditKen Domon · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1925

Yukio Mishima

Japanese novelist and playwright of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

Faye Dunaway
Image creditJacobsT21 · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1941

Faye Dunaway

American actress, star of Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown and Network.

Steven Soderbergh
Image creditJan Beránek · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1963

Steven Soderbergh

American film director of Traffic, Erin Brockovich and Ocean’s Eleven.

Dave Grohl
Image creditRaph_PH · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1969

Dave Grohl

American musician, drummer of Nirvana and founder of the Foo Fighters.

◉
IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

The surface of Titan, photographed by the Huygens probe after landing on 14 January 2005.
The surface of Titan, photographed by the Huygens probe after landing on 14 January 2005.
Image creditESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
2005

Huygens lands on Saturn’s moon Titan

Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is hidden under a thick orange haze. The European Space Agency’s Huygens probe travelled there for seven years aboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and separated from it on Christmas Day 2004.

On 14 January 2005 Huygens parachuted for about two and a half hours through Titan’s atmosphere and landed gently on the surface, the first landing on a world in the outer solar system. It sent back pictures of rounded pebbles of water ice, and signs that liquid methane flows across Titan’s surface as water does on Earth.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: European Space Agency: the Huygens probe lands on Titan ↗
☆
SPORTING HISTORY

Sporting Moments

Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, seen from the air in December 2016.
Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, seen from the air in December 2016.
Image creditBjørn Christian Tørrissen · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
1897

A Swiss guide reaches the top of Aconcagua

At 6,961 metres, Aconcagua in the Argentine Andes is the highest mountain outside Asia. In 1896-97 an expedition led by the English climber Edward FitzGerald, with several Swiss mountain guides, spent weeks trying to reach its summit through cold, wind and altitude sickness.

On 14 January 1897 the guide Matthias Zurbriggen went on alone from the last camp and reached the top, the first recorded ascent. FitzGerald, ill with the altitude, had to turn back. A month later, on 13 February, Stuart Vines and another guide made the second ascent.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Matthias Zurbriggen ↗
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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

Adolfo Hohenstein's cover for the first edition of the piano score of Tosca, published by Ricordi in 1899.
Adolfo Hohenstein’s cover for the first edition of the piano score of Tosca, published by Ricordi in 1899.
Image creditAdolfo Hohenstein · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1900

Puccini’s Tosca opens in Rome

Giacomo Puccini had made his name with Manon Lescaut and La bohème. For his next opera he turned to a French melodrama set in Rome in 1800, in which the singer Floria Tosca tries to save her lover from the cruel police chief Scarpia.

Tosca had its premiere at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900, with Hariclea Darclée in the title role. Critics were divided, but audiences loved it, and it was soon performed around the world. With arias such as ‘Vissi d’arte’, it remains one of the most often staged operas.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Metropolitan Opera: what to expect from Tosca (educator guide) ↗
The arena in Honolulu, then called the Honolulu International Center, where Elvis Presley played Aloha from Hawaii; photographed in 2010.
The arena in Honolulu, then called the Honolulu International Center, where Elvis Presley played Aloha from Hawaii; photographed in 2010.
Image creditRobert.Allen · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
1973

Elvis sings to the world by satellite

By the early 1970s communications satellites could carry live television across oceans. Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, arranged a concert in Honolulu to be beamed live to audiences around the Pacific.

Presley played Aloha from Hawaii after midnight on 14 January 1973, Hawaiian time. It went out live by satellite to Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and other countries, and later to Europe; American viewers saw it that April. It was the first concert by a single performer broadcast around the world by satellite, and Graceland estimates that more than a billion people watched.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Graceland: the concert seen around the world, Aloha from Hawaii ↗
✦
LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Lewis Carroll
Image creditLewis Carroll · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1898

Lewis Carroll

English writer and mathematician, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Humphrey Bogart
Image creditElmer Fryer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1957

Humphrey Bogart

American film star of Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon.

Anaïs Nin
Image creditElsa Dorfman · CC BY 2.5Resized and cropped for display.
Died 1977

Anaïs Nin

French-born American writer known for her published diaries.

Alan Rickman
Image creditMarie-Lan Nguyen · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Died 2016

Alan Rickman

English actor of Die Hard, Sense and Sensibility and the Harry Potter films.

☉
AROUND THE WORLD

Observances & Anniversaries

Devotees take a holy dip in the River Ganges at Makar Sankranti.
Devotees take a holy dip in the River Ganges at Makar Sankranti.
Image creditAbhay12253 · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Annual

Makar Sankranti

Across India, Hindus usually celebrate Makar Sankranti on 14 January, when the Sun enters the sign of Capricorn and begins its journey north. It is a harvest festival marked with kite flying, bonfires, sweets made of sesame and jaggery, and bathing in holy rivers. In Tamil Nadu the same season is celebrated as Pongal, and in the Punjab as Lohri.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Makar Sankranti ↗
HISTORY & TIMELINE

Finished the highlights?

Follow 14 January chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 10 verified events and the sources behind them.

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Sources & further reading