1914 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal government">Federal government of the United States">Federal government

• President: Woodrow Wilson
• Vice President: Thomas R. Marshall
• Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark
• Congress: 63rd

  Governors

Lieutenant governors

Events

January–March

• January 1 - The St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line starts services between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida, becoming the world's first airline to provide scheduled regular commercial passenger services with heavier-than-air aircraft, with Anthony Jannus conveying passengers in a Benoist XIV flying boat. Abram C. Pheil, mayor of St. Petersburg, is the first airline passenger, and over 3,000 people witness the first departure.
• January 5 - The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.
• January 9 - The Phi Beta Sigma fraternity is founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
• February 13 - Copyright: In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

  April–June

• April 6 - The American Radio Relay League is founded.
• April 9 - Tampico Affair, involving U.S. Navy sailors in Mexico.
• April 11 - Alpha Rho Chi, a professional architecture fraternity, is founded in the Hotel Sherman in Chicago.
• April 14 - The city of Irving, Texas, is incorporated.
• April 18 – Eccles mine disaster
• April 20
• * Ludlow Massacre : The Colorado National Guard attacks a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners in Ludlow, Colorado, killing 24 people.
• * President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to use military force in Mexico in reaction to the Tampico Affair.
• April 21 - United States occupation of Veracruz: 2,300 U.S. Navy sailors and Marines from the South Atlantic fleet land in the port city of Veracruz, Mexico, which they will occupy for over 6 months. The Ypiranga incident occurs when they attempt to enforce an arms embargo against Mexico by preventing the German cargo steamer from unloading arms for the Mexican government in the port. On April 22 Mexico for the time being ends diplomatic relations with the U.S.
• April 23 - The baseball stadium Weeghman Park, later known as Wrigley Field, opens in Chicago.
• May 14 - Woodrow Wilson signs a Mother's Day proclamation.
• June 1 - Woodrow Wilson's envoy Edward Mandell House meets with Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

  July–September

• July 4 - Lexington Avenue bombing: 4 people are killed in New York City when an anarchist bomb intended to kill John D. Rockefeller explodes prematurely in the plotters' apartment.
• July 11
• * Baseball legend Babe Ruth makes his major league debut with the Boston Red Sox.
• * USS Nevada, the United States Navy's first "super-dreadnought" battleship, is launched.
• * Over 5,000 attend a rally in Union Square, Manhattan, called by the Anti-Militarist League to commemorate the anarchists killed in the July 4 Lexington Avenue bombing.
• July 18 - The Signal Corps of the United States Army is formed, giving definite status to its air service for the first time.
• August 1 - New York Stock Exchange closed due to war in Europe, where nearly all stock exchanges are already closed.
• August 4 - German troops invade neutral Belgium at 8:02 AM. Britain declares war on Germany for this violation of Belgian neutrality. This move effectively means a declaration of war by the whole British Commonwealth and Empire against Germany. The United States declares neutrality.
• August 15
• * The Panama Canal is inaugurated with the passage of the steamship U.S.S. Ancon.
• * A dismissed servant kills seven people at architect Frank Lloyd Wright's studio and home, Taliesin in Wisconsin, and sets it on fire.
• September 1 - The last known passenger pigeon "Martha" dies in the Cincinnati Zoo.
• September 26 - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
• September 30 - The Flying Squadron is established to promote the temperance movement.

  October–December

• October 7 - Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. marries Rose Fitzgerald in Boston.
• November 16 - A year after being created by passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens for business.
• November 23 - U.S. troops withdraw from Veracruz. Venustiano Carranza's troops take over and Carranza makes the town his headquarters.
• November 28 - World War I: Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading.
• December 12 - The New York Stock Exchange re-opened, having been closed since August 1, 1914, except for bond trading.
• December 17 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act.

  Undated

• The Port of Orange, Texas, is dredged for the fabrication of vessels for the United States Navy.
• The United States Power Squadrons is formed.
• Phi Sigma, a local undergraduate classical club, is founded by a group of students in the Greek Department at the University of Chicago.
• Henry Ford sells 248,000 cars.

  Ongoing

• Progressive Era
• Lochner era

  Births

• January 4 - Herman Franks, baseball player, coach and manager
• January 7 - Bobby McDermott, basketball player
• January 12 - Edward Gurney, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1969 to 1974
• January 31 - Carey Loftin, actor and stuntman
• February 5 - William S. Burroughs, writer and artist
• March 25 - Norman Borlaug, agronomist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
• April 17 - Dovey Johnson Roundtree, civil rights activist, ordained minister and attorney
• May 9 - Denham Fouts, prostitute
• June 2 - Johnny Bulla, golfer
• June 6 - H. Adams Carter, mountaineer, journalist and educator
• June 12 - Bill Kenny, African American tenor vocalist
• June 19 - Alan Cranston, U.S. Senator from California from 1969 to 1993
• July 14 - Baruch Korff, rabbi
• September 9 - Marjorie Lee Brown, mathematician
• September 26 - Francois Henri "Jack" LaLanne, fitness and dietary health trainer
• October 22 - Jack Parsons, rocket engineer and occultist
• October 28 - Jonas Salk, medical researcher
• November 25 - Joe DiMaggio, Major League Baseball center fielder
• December 18 - Chuck Apolskis, American footballer
• December 20 - Harry F. Byrd Jr., U.S. senator from Virginia from 1965 to 1983

  Deaths

• January 28 - Shelby Moore Cullom, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1883 to 1913
• February 14 - Augustus Octavius Bacon, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1895 to 1914
• February 23 - Henry M. Teller, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1876 to 1882 and from 1885 to 1909
• March 26 - Benjamin Franklin Keith, vaudeville theatre owner
• March 28 - Randolph McCoy patriarch of the McCoy clan during the Hatfield-McCoy feud
• May 9 - C. W. Post, businessman, founder of Post Foods
• May 23 - William O'Connell Bradley, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1895 to 1899
• June 14 - Adlai E. Stevenson, 23rd Vice President of the United States from 1893 to 1897
• August 6 - Ellen Axson Wilson, wife of Woodrow Wilson, First Lady of the United States
• August 25 - Powell Clayton, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1868 to 1871
• September 13 - Charles N. Felton, U.S. Senator from California from 1891 to 1893
• September 28 - Christian Fleetwood, U.S. Sergeant Major in the 4th U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment during the Civil War
• November 20 or 21 - Thaddeus C. Pound, businessman and politician
• December 22 - William Stanley West, U.S. Senator from Georgia in 1914