January •
January 1 – Latvia adopts the
euro as its currency and becomes the 18th member of the
Eurozone. •
January 5 – A launch of the communication satellite
GSAT-14 aboard the
GSLV Mk.II D5 marks the first successful flight of an Indian
cryogenic rocket engine. •
January 9 – The
Elk River Chemical Spill in
Charleston, West Virginia, when a leakage of the chemical MCMH from a
Freedom Industries chemical plant left 300,000 residents of Charleston and nine surrounding counties without drinkable water for over three months.
February • February – The
West African Ebola virus epidemic begins, infecting at least 28,616 people and killing at least 11,310 people, the most severe both in terms of numbers of infections and casualties. •
February 7–
23 – The
XXII Olympic Winter Games are held in
Sochi, Russia.
Slopestyle events are introduced for the first time. •
February 13 – Belgium becomes the first country in the world to legalise
euthanasia for terminally ill patients of any age. •
February 22 –
Revolution of Dignity: The
Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) votes to remove
President Viktor Yanukovych from office, replacing him with
Oleksandr Turchynov, after days of civil unrest leaving around 100 people dead in
Kyiv. •
February 24 – The
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 operates its last passenger flight, signaling the end to a bygone era of
aviation. •
February 28 – The number of people in the U.S. using mobile devices to access the internet overtook those using desktop computers for the first time, a feat which would be followed globally two years later in 2016.
March •
March 1 –
2014 Kunming attack: Eight knife-wielding terrorists stabbed and slashed passengers at the
Kunming railway station in Kunming, Yunnan, China, killing 31 people and injuring 143 others. •
March 5 –
Nicolás Maduro, the
President of Venezuela, severs diplomatic and political ties with
Panama, accusing Panama of being involved in a conspiracy against the
Venezuelan government. •
March 8 –
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a
Boeing 777 airliner en route to Beijing from
Kuala Lumpur, disappears over the
Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board. The aircraft is presumed to have crashed into the
Indian Ocean. •
March 16 •
2014 Crimean status referendum: A disputed referendum on the status of the
Crimean Peninsula is held. • The fifth
ICC T20 World Cup in cricket is held in
Bangladesh. •
March 21 – Russia formally
annexes Crimea after
President Vladimir Putin signs a bill formalizing the process. •
March 24 – During an emergency meeting, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Germany, France, Japan, and Canada temporarily suspend Russia from the
G8, recognizing
Crimea within Ukraine's international borders and rejecting the validity of the
2014 Crimean referendum. •
March 31 – The
United Nations International Court of Justice rules that Japan's
Antarctic whaling program is not scientific but commercial and forbids grants of further permits.
April •
April 7 – The self-proclaimed
Donetsk People's Republic declares its independence from Ukraine. •
April 10 – In response to the
invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia, the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passes a resolution to temporarily strip Russia of its voting rights; its rights to be represented in the Bureau of the Assembly, the PACE Presidential Committee, and the PACE Standing Committee; and its right to participate in election-observation missions. •
April 14 –
Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping: an estimated 276 girls and women are abducted from a school in
Nigeria and held hostage. •
April 16 – The South Korean ferry
MV Sewol capsizes and sinks after an unmanageable cargo shift, killing 304 people, mostly high school students. •
April 27 – The
Catholic Church simultaneously
canonizes Popes
John XXIII and
John Paul II. •
April 28 – United States
President Barack Obama's new
economic sanctions against Russia go into effect, targeting companies and individuals close to
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
May •
May 2 •
2014 Odesa clashes •
May 5 • The
World Health Organization identifies the spread of
poliomyelitis in at least 10 countries as a major worldwide health emergency. •
Boko Haram militants kill approximately 300 people in a night
attack on Gamboru Ngala in Nigeria. •
May 6–
10 – The
Eurovision Song Contest 2014 takes place in
Copenhagen, Denmark, and is won by
Austrian entrant
Conchita Wurst with the song "
Rise Like a Phoenix". •
May 12 – The self-proclaimed
Luhansk People's Republic declares its independence from Ukraine. •
May 14 – According to a
South Korea Unification Ministry report, a twenty-three story
apartment building collapsed in
Pyongchon-guyok,
Pyongyang, North Korea (DPR of Korea), with more than 490 fatalities estimated. •
May 20 –
2014 Jos bombings: Terrorists in Nigeria detonate bombs at Jos, killing 118 people. •
May 21 –
A mass stabbing incident occurred on Taipei Metro's
Bannan line from
Longshan Temple to
Jiangzicui station causing 4 fatalities and 21 injuries. •
May 22 •
2014 Thai coup d'état: The
Royal Thai Army overthrows the caretaker government of
Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan after a failure to resolve the
political unrest in Thailand. • A
terrorist attack in Ürümqi, China leaves 43 people dead and more than 90 injured. • The
Donetsk People's Republic and the
Luhansk People's Republic declare the formation of
Novorossiya, also referred to as the Union of People's Republics. •
May 26 –
Narendra Modi succeeds
Manmohan Singh as the 14th
Prime Minister of India. •
May 28 - The
Jangseong Nursing Home fire happens in
Jangseong County, South Korea killing 21.
June •
June 5 – A
Sunni militant group now calling itself the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) begins an
offensive through northern Iraq, aiming to capture the
Iraqi capital city of
Baghdad and
overthrow the
Shiite government led by Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki. •
June 12 • In the
Camp Speicher massacre in
Iraq,
ISIL kills 1,566 Shia Iraqi Air Force cadets. It is the second deadliest terrorist attack in history and the deadliest attack conducted by ISIL. • The
2014 FIFA World Cup started with hosts
Brazil defeating
Croatia 3–1. •
June 13 •
War against the Islamic State begins. • The
Los Angeles Kings defeat the
New York Rangers 3–2 in game 5 of the
2014 Stanley Cup Final to win the series 4–1 and win their second
Stanley Cup in franchise history. •
June 14 – The
Catholic Church removes restrictions on
clerical marriage in the
Eastern Catholic Churches'
diaspora. •
June 15 • The
San Antonio Spurs defeat the
Miami Heat in the
2014 NBA Finals, 4–1, to win their 5th championship in franchise history. •
Australia wins the
2014 Hockey World Cup. •
June 19 –
Felipe VI becomes
King of Spain upon the abdication of his father,
Juan Carlos I. •
June 29 – The
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant declares itself a
caliphate.
July •
July 8 – In the
2014 FIFA World Cup semi-finals, hosts Brazil were shockingly
beaten 7–1 by Germany after trailing 0–5 in 29 minutes. •
July 8–
August 26 – Amid growing tensions between Israel and
Hamas following the
kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June and the
revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager in July, Israel launches
Operation Protective Edge against
Hamas-controlled
Gaza Strip starting with numerous missile strikes, followed by a ground offensive a week later. In seven weeks of fighting, 2,100 Palestinians and 71 Israelis are killed. •
July 13 –
Germany defeats
Argentina 1-0 to win the
2014 FIFA World Cup. •
July 17 –
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a
Boeing 777, crashes in eastern Ukraine after being shot down by a missile. All 298 people on board are killed. •
July 18 –
Typhoon Rammasun makes landfall in
Hainan, China as a category 5 super typhoon, killing 88 and causing $7.14 billion in damages. •
July 20 –
Monty Python Live (Mostly) closes in London, ending the famous British comedy group
Monty Python, active since 1969. •
July 21 – The
United Nations Security Council adopts
Resolution 2166 in response to the shootdown of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. •
July 23–
August 3 – The
2014 Commonwealth Games takes place in
Glasgow, Scotland. •
July 24 –
Air Algérie Flight 5017, a
McDonnell Douglas MD-83, crashes in
Mali, killing all 116 people on board. •
July 26 -
Washington DC metro opens Phase 1 of the silver line to
Tysons Corner,
Reston, and
Loudoun county. •
July 28 – 100-year anniversary of
World War I's commencement (Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia).
August •
August 3 –
Sinjar massacre, beginning of ISIS attacks resulting in the massacre of over 4,000
Yazidis in Iraq's
Sinjar District. •
August 7 –
Khmer Rouge leaders
Nuon Chea and
Khieu Samphan are found guilty of
crimes against humanity and are sentenced to life imprisonment by the
Khmer Rouge Tribunal. •
August 8 •
American-led intervention in Iraq: The
United States military begins an air campaign in northern
Iraq to stem the influx of
ISIL militants. • The
World Health Organization (WHO) declares the
Ebola outbreak a
Public Health Emergency of International Concern. • ''
Five Nights at Freddy's'' is released by Scott Cawthon. •
August 9 – The
shooting of Michael Brown, an African American, by a police officer occurs in
Ferguson, Missouri, triggering riots.
September •
September 15 –
Syrian civil war: ISIS militants launched
an offensive to capture the town of
Kobanî, which lasted for six months. •
September 18 – In the
2014 Scottish independence referendum, Scotland votes against independence from the United Kingdom. •
September 21 – The
Battle of Sanaa leads to the start of the
Yemeni Civil War, as Houthi forces capture the capital city Sanaa, followed by a rapid Houthi takeover of the government. •
September 22 –
American-led intervention in Syria: The United States and several Arab partners begin their airstrike campaign in
Syria. •
September 24 – The Mars Orbiter Mission, popularly known as
Mangalyaan, which was launched on 5 November 2013 by the
Indian Space Research Organisation, reached
Martian orbit, making
India the first Asian country to successfully reach Mars. •
September 26 • The 2014
World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, to be held in
Cape Town from 13 to 15 October, is suspended after a boycott of Nobel Laureates to protest the third time refusal of a
visa to the
14th Dalai Lama by a South African Government "kowtowing to China". •
Forty-three male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College are forcibly abducted in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. They were allegedly taken into custody by local police officers in collusion with organized crime. The mass kidnapping caused international protests and social unrest, leading to the resignation of Guerrero Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero. •
September 27 –
Mount Ontake, in
Japan,
erupts, killing several climbers on the slopes of the
volcano. •
September 28 –
Hong Kong protests:
Benny Tai Yiu-ting announces that Occupy Central is launched as Hong Kong's government headquarters is being occupied by thousands of protesters. Hong Kong police resort to tear gas to disperse protesters but thousands remain.
October •
October 3 –
Stefan Löfven replaces
Fredrik Reinfeldt as
Prime Minister of Sweden. •
October 19 – The
Roman Catholic Church beatifies
Pope Paul VI. •
October 20 –
Joko Widodo is inaugurated as the 7th
President of Indonesia. •
October 24 –
Alan Eustace, an American
computer scientist, sets a world record highest and longest free fall jump from over
Roswell, New Mexico, United States, breaking the
sound barrier without any machine assistance during a record
space dive out of a massive
helium-filled balloon. His descent to Earth lasts 4 minutes 27 seconds and stretches nearly with peak speeds exceeding , setting new world records for the highest free-fall jump and total free-fall distance . •
October 31 – Longtime
Burkina Faso President
Blaise Compaoré resigns after
widespread protests in response to his attempts to abolish presidential term limits.
November •
November 1 –
Bangladesh faces a
nationwide blackout. •
November 2 – The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases the final part of its
Fifth Assessment Report, warning that the world faces "severe, pervasive and irreversible" damage from global emissions of CO2. •
November 3 – The tallest building in the Western Hemisphere,
One World Trade Center in New York City, opens. •
November 12 – The uncrewed
Rosetta spacecraft's
Philae probe successfully lands on
Comet 67P, the first time in history that a spacecraft has landed on such an object.
December •
December 3 – The Japanese space agency,
JAXA, launches uncrewed spaceprobe
Hayabusa2 from the
Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year round-trip mission to
Ryugu to collect rock samples. •
December 15 – Two hostages and terrorist
Man Haron Monis are killed in the
Lindt Cafe siege in
Sydney, Australia. •
December 16 –
2014 Peshawar school massacre: The
Pakistani Taliban carry out a mass shooting at an
army school in
Peshawar, Pakistan, killing at least 145 people, mostly schoolchildren. •
December 17 – U.S. President
Barack Obama announces the
resumption of normal diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba. •
December 28 –
Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 from
Surabaya, Indonesia, to
Singapore crashes into the
Java Sea just southwest of
Borneo, killing all 162 people on board. •
December 31 – A
stampede occurred on New Year's Eve in Shanghai, China, resulting in the deaths of 36 people and leaving 49 injured. ==Births and deaths==