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HISTORY & TIMELINE
14 November

A journey through
14 November in history

From James Bruce at the springs of the Blue Nile in 1770 to Germany and Poland settling their border in 1990, 14 November has seen journeys, broadcasts and new beginnings, and also the destruction of Coventry. This timeline follows the date across more than two centuries.

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JUMP THROUGH TIME
III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

Exploration, political change, scientific development and expanding global connections.

1770
James Bruce, painted by Pompeo Batoni.James Bruce, painted by Pompeo Batoni.Image: Pompeo Batoni · Public domain
world · Africa

James Bruce reaches the springs of the Blue Nile

On 14 November 1770 the Scottish traveller James Bruce reached the springs at Gish Abay in the Ethiopian highlands, which feed Lake Tana and the Blue Nile, and believed he had found the source of the Nile. He was not the first European there: the Spanish Jesuit Pedro Páez had described the springs in 1618. Bruce’s account, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, published in 1790, was widely doubted at first but became a classic of exploration.

Source: Royal Geographical Society: James Bruce and the perils of Enlightenment travel ↗
IV
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1800s

Industry, empire, invention, reform and a century of enormous transformation.

1889
Nellie Bly, photographed by H. J. Myers around 1890.Nellie Bly, photographed by H. J. Myers around 1890.Image: H. J. Myers, photographer · Public domain
world · Americas

Nellie Bly sets out to beat Phileas Fogg

On 14 November 1889 the 25-year-old New York World reporter Nellie Bly, the pen name of Elizabeth Cochrane, sailed from New Jersey with one small bag, determined to go around the world faster than Phileas Fogg, the hero of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. Her newspaper printed daily reports and ran a contest for readers to guess her time. Travelling by steamship and train, and meeting Verne himself in France on the way, she was back in New Jersey after 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds, a world record.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Nellie Bly ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

War and peace, technological leaps, social change, politics, sport and popular culture.

1918
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, photographed in 1925.Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, photographed in 1925.Image: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
politics · Europe

Czechoslovakia names Masaryk its first president

Czechoslovakia had declared its independence from Austria-Hungary on 28 October 1918. On 14 November its Revolutionary National Assembly met for the first time in the Thun Palace in Prague, declared the new state a republic, deposed the Habsburgs from the Bohemian throne and elected Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk president by acclamation. Masaryk, a 68-year-old philosopher who had spent the war abroad campaigning for independence, was still in the United States. He returned to a hero’s welcome in Prague in December and was re-elected three times, serving until 1935.

Source: Prague Castle, Office of the President: Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, life and works in dates ↗
1922
Marconi House on the Strand in London, home of the 2LO station.Marconi House on the Strand in London, home of the 2LO station.Image: N Chadwick · CC BY-SA 2.0
culture · Europe

The BBC begins daily broadcasting

At 6 p.m. on 14 November 1922 Arthur Burrows, director of programmes of the new British Broadcasting Company, spoke into a microphone at Marconi House on the Strand in London: ‘This is 2LO, Marconi House, London calling.’ He read the news twice, once fast and once slowly, and asked listeners to write in to say which speed they preferred. It was the start of Britain’s first daily national radio service. Within a few years radio had turned from a hobby for enthusiasts into a part of everyday life, and in 1927 the company became the public British Broadcasting Corporation.

Source: Science Museum: 2LO calling, the birth of British public radio ↗
1940
The ruins of Coventry's old cathedral beside the new cathedral built after the war.The ruins of Coventry’s old cathedral beside the new cathedral built after the war.Image: DeFacto · CC BY-SA 4.0
world · Europe

The bombing of Coventry

On the night of 14 November 1940 hundreds of German bombers attacked the English city of Coventry in a raid code-named Moonlight Sonata. The sirens sounded at 7.10 p.m., and the bombing went on for about eleven hours. Incendiaries set the medieval cathedral of St Michael alight, and firefighters, their water supplies cut, could only watch it burn. Several hundred people were killed, tens of thousands of homes were destroyed or damaged, and much of the city centre was flattened. The ruined cathedral was left standing as a memorial beside the new cathedral consecrated in 1962, and Coventry has since made reconciliation, especially with the German city of Dresden, part of its identity.

Source: Imperial War Museums: Operation Moonlight Sonata, bomb damage in Coventry, November 1940 ↗
1969
Pete Conrad beside the Surveyor 3 probe on the Moon, photographed by Alan Bean, November 1969.Pete Conrad beside the Surveyor 3 probe on the Moon, photographed by Alan Bean, November 1969.Image: NASA, Alan L. Bean · Public domain
science · Americas

Apollo 12 is struck by lightning on the way to the Moon

Apollo 12 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in rain on 14 November 1969 with Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon and Alan Bean on board. Thirty-six seconds into the flight, and again at 52 seconds, the rocket was struck by lightning, knocking out the spacecraft’s electrical systems and filling the control panel with warning lights. A flight controller, John Aaron, recognised the pattern and called for an obscure switch to be moved; Bean found it and power was restored. Five days later Conrad and Bean landed within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 probe, which had been sitting on the Moon since 1967.

Source: NASA: 55 years ago, Apollo 12 launches ↗
1971
The Mariner 9 spacecraft.The Mariner 9 spacecraft.Image: NASA · Public domain
science · Americas

Mariner 9 becomes the first spacecraft to orbit another planet

Early on 14 November 1971 (UTC), NASA’s Mariner 9 fired its main engine for just over fifteen minutes and slipped into orbit around Mars, the first spacecraft ever to orbit another planet. It arrived ahead of the Soviet probe Mars 2, which had been launched eleven days before it. Mars was hidden at first by a planet-wide dust storm, but as it cleared Mariner 9 mapped most of the surface and sent back more than 7,000 pictures, revealing the giant volcano Olympus Mons, the canyon system later named Valles Marineris after the mission, and the small moons Phobos and Deimos.

Source: NASA: 50 years ago, Mariner 9 enters Mars orbit ↗
1990
Map of the Oder-Neisse line and the territory Germany lost after 1945.Map of the Oder-Neisse line and the territory Germany lost after 1945.Image: Unknown · CC BY-SA 3.0
politics · Europe

Germany and Poland confirm their border

Six weeks after German reunification, on 14 November 1990 in Warsaw, the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland signed a treaty confirming the frontier between the two countries along the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, the line drawn at the end of the Second World War. It settled a question that had troubled the two countries since 1945, and together with a treaty of friendship signed the following year it laid the ground for their reconciliation.

Source: United Nations Treaty Series: Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland on the confirmation of the frontier between them, 14 November 1990 ↗
1991
Norodom Sihanouk with US President Ronald Reagan at the White House in 1988.Norodom Sihanouk with US President Ronald Reagan at the White House in 1988.Image: White House · Public domain
politics · Asia

Sihanouk returns to Cambodia

Norodom Sihanouk, who had led Cambodia to independence in 1953, spent most of the years after 1979 in exile in China and North Korea, leading a coalition resisting the Vietnamese-backed government in Phnom Penh. The Paris Peace Agreements of October 1991 set out to end the long civil war under United Nations supervision. On 14 November 1991 Sihanouk returned to Phnom Penh after thirteen years away and was greeted by huge crowds. After UN-run elections in 1993 he was restored as king, and he reigned until he abdicated in 2004.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Norodom Sihanouk ↗
RESEARCH

Sources & Further Reading

Selected authoritative references supporting the events on this page.

WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 14 November, where each entry is chosen for historical significance, human interest and reliability.

Facts are checked against authoritative museums, archives, universities and reference works. Where sources disagree, the page says so.

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