June 14

World Blood Donor Day
Every year, on 14 June, countries around the world celebrate World Blood Donor Day (WBDD). The event, established in 2004, serves to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to thank blood donors for their voluntary life-saving gifts of blood.

World Blood Donor Day is one of eight official global public health campaigns marked by the World Health Organization (WHO), along with World Health Day, World Tuberculosis Day, World Immunization Week, World Malaria Day, World No Tobacco Day, World Hepatitis Day, and World AIDS Day.

Events

1276 – While taking exile in Fuzhou in southern China, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the Song Dynasty court hold the coronation ceremony for the young prince Zhao Shi, making him Emperor Duanzong of Song.
1285 – Forces led by Prince Tran Quang Khai of Vietnam's Tran Dynasty destroys most of the invading Mongol naval fleet in a battle at Chuong Duong.
1287 – Kublai Khan defeated the force of Nayan and other traditionalist Borjigin princes in East Mongolia and Manchuria.
1381 – Richard II of England meets leaders of Peasants' Revolt on Blackheath. The Tower of London is stormed by rebels who enter without resistance.
1645 – English Civil War: Battle of Naseby – 12,000 Royalist forces are beaten by 15,000 Parliamentarian soldiers.
1648 – Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution for the Massachusetts colony.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: the Continental Army is established by the Continental Congress, marking the birth of the United States Army.
1777 – The Stars and Stripes is adopted by Congress as the Flag of the United States.
1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty: Bounty mutiny survivors including Captain William Bligh and 18 others reach Timor after a nearly 7,400 km (4,600 mi) journey in an open boat.
1789 – Whiskey distilled from maize is first produced by American clergyman the Rev Elijah Craig. It is named Bourbon because Rev Craig lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky.
1800 – The French Army of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo in Northern Italy and re-conquers Italy.
1807 – Emperor Napoleon I's French Grande Armee defeats the Russian Army at the Battle of Friedland in Poland (modern Russian Kaliningrad Oblast) ending the War of the Fourth Coalition.
1821 – Badi VII, king of Sennar, surrenders his throne and realm to Isma'il Pasha, general of the Ottoman Empire, ending the existence of that Sudanese kingdom.
1822 – Charles Babbage proposes a difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society entitled "Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables".
1830 – Beginning of the French colonization of Algeria: 34,000 French soldiers begin their invasion of Algiers, landing 27 kilometers west at Sidi Fredj.
1839 – Henley Royal Regatta: the village of Henley-on-Thames, on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, stages its first Regatta.
1846 – Bear Flag Revolt begins – Anglo settlers in Sonoma, California, start a rebellion against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic.
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Second Winchester – a Union garrison is defeated by the Army of Northern Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley town of Winchester, Virginia.
1863 – Second Assault on the Confederate works at the Siege of Port Hudson during the American Civil War.
1872 – Trade unions are legalised in Canada.
1900 – Hawaii becomes a United States territory.
1900 – The Reichstag approves a second law that allows the expansion of the German navy.
1907 – Norway adopts female suffrage.
1919 – John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown depart St. John's, Newfoundland on the first nonstop transatlantic flight.
1926 – Brazil leaves the League of Nations
1937 – Pennsylvania becomes the first (and only) state of the United States to celebrate Flag Day officially as a state holiday.
1937 – U.S. House of Representatives passes the Marihuana Tax Act.
1940 – World War II: Paris falls under German occupation, and Allied forces retreat.
1940 – The Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Lithuania resulting in Lithuanian loss of independence.
1940 – A group of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first residents of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
1941 – June deportation, the first major wave of Soviet mass deportations and murder of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, begins.
1944 – World War II: After several failed attempts, the British Army abandons Operation Perch, its plan to capture the German-occupied town of Caen.
1945 – World War II: U.S and Filipino forces at the Battle of Bessang Pass in Ilocos Sur province in Northern Luzon.
1945 – World War II: Filipino troops of the 15th, 66th and 121st Infantry Regiment, Philippine Commonwealth Army, USAFIP-NL was completed and they liberating the captured in Ilocos Sur start the Battle of Bessang Pass in Northern Luzon.
1947 – Roswell UFO incident A supposed UFO crash lands in Roswell, New Mexico
1951 – UNIVAC I is dedicated by the U.S. Census Bureau.
1952 – The keel is laid for the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
1954 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words "under God" into the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.
1955 – Chile becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1959 – Disneyland Monorail System, the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere, opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
1959 – A group of Dominican exiles depart from Cuba and land in the Dominican Republic with the intent of overthrowing the totalitarian government of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina. Save for four of them, all are killed and/or executed.
1962 – The European Space Research Organisation is established in Paris – later becoming the European Space Agency.
1965 – Nguyen Cao Ky became Prime Minister of South Vietnam at the head of a military junta; General Nguyen Van Thieu became the figurehead chief of state.
1966 – The Vatican announces the abolition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (index of prohibited books), which was originally instituted in 1557.
1967 – Mariner program: Mariner 5 is launched toward Venus.
1982 – The Falklands War ends: Argentine forces in the capital Stanley unconditionally surrender to British forces.
1985 – TWA Flight 847 is hijacked by Hezbollah shortly after take-off from Athens, Greece.
1994 – The 1994 Stanley Cup riot occurs after the New York Rangers win the Stanley Cup from Vancouver, causing an estimated C$1.1 million, thus forcing 200 arrests and injuries. One person is also left with permanent brain damage.

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:
Elisha
Methodios I of Constantinople
June 14 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Flag Day (United States)
Freedom Day (Malawi)
Liberation Day (Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands)
Mourning and Commemoration Day or Leinapäev (Estonia)
Mourning and Hope Day in Lithuania.
Women's Day (Iraq)
World Blood Donor Day (International observance)

For details, contact Datacentre