December 14 in history — What Happened Today in History

Qasba Aligarh massacre: Over 400 Muhajirs killed in revenge killings in Qasba colony after a raid on Pashtun heroin processing and distribution center in Sohrab Goth by the security forces.

Wilma Mankiller takes office as the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Arab–Israeli conflict: Israel's Knesset ratifies the Golan Heights Law, extending Israeli law to the Golan Heights.

Apollo program: Eugene Cernan is the most recent person to walk on the Moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final extravehicular activity (EVA) of the Apollo 17 mission.

Bangladesh Liberation War: Over 200 of East Pakistan's intellectuals are executed by the Pakistan Army and their local allies. (The date is commemorated in Bangladesh as Martyred Intellectuals Day.)

American Civil Rights Movement: Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that Congress can use the Constitution's Commerce Clause to fight discrimination.

The dam containing the Baldwin Hills Reservoir bursts, killing five people and damaging hundreds of homes in Los Angeles, California.

NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.

Convention against Discrimination in Education of UNESCO is adopted.

The 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition becomes the first to reach the southern pole of inaccessibility.

Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania and Spain join the United Nations through United Nations Security Council Resolution 109.

Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann are granted a patent for their cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game.

An Aeroflot Tupolev ANT-20 crashes near Tashkent, killing all 36 people on board.

Plutonium (specifically Pu-238) is first isolated at Berkeley, California.

Winter War: The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland.

Wozzeck, Alban Berg's first opera, is premiered at the Berlin State Opera conducted by Erich Kleiber.

Friedrich Karl von Hessen, a German prince elected by the Parliament of Finland to become King of Finland, renounces the throne.

Portuguese President Sidónio Pais is assassinated.

The 1918 United Kingdom general election occurs, the first where women were permitted to vote. In Ireland the Irish republican political party Sinn Féin wins a landslide victory with nearly 47% of the popular vote.

Giacomo Puccini's comic opera Gianni Schicchi premieres at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Lisandro de la Torre and others found the Democratic Progressive Party (Partido Demócrata Progresista, PDP) at the Hotel Savoy, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Haruna, the fourth and last Kongō-class ship, launches, eventually becoming one of the Japanese workhorses during World War I and World War II.

Roald Amundsen's team, comprising himself, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting, becomes the first to reach the South Pole.

New South Wales Premier Charles Wade signs the Seat of Government Surrender Act 1909, formally completing the transfer of State land to the Commonwealth to create the Australian Capital Territory.

The Thomas W. Lawson, the largest ever ship without a heat engine, runs aground and founders near the Hellweather's Reef within the Isles of Scilly in a gale. The pilot and 15 seamen die.

The Wright brothers make their first attempt to fly with the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

The Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable, from San Francisco to Honolulu.

Quantum mechanics: Max Planck presents a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law (quantum theory) at the Physic Society in Berlin.

Antonio Giovinazzi, Italian race car driver

Tori Kelly, American singer-songwriter

Ryo Miyaichi, Japanese footballer

Ben Henry, New Zealand rugby league player

Offset, American rapper

Robert Covington, American basketball player

Pedro Botelho, Brazilian footballer

Sam Burgess, English rugby league player

Onew, South Korean singer-songwriter and dancer

Nicolas Batum, French basketball player

Nate Ebner, American football player

Vanessa Hudgens, American actress and singer

Hayato Sakamoto, Japanese baseball player

Lillian Vernon, German-American businesswoman and philanthropist, founded the Lillian Vernon Company (born 1927)

Theo Colborn, American zoologist and academic (born 1927)

Irene Dalis, American soprano and pianist (born 1925)

Louis Alphonse Koyagialo, Congolese politician, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (born 1947)

Bess Myerson, American model, activist, game show panelist and television personality; Miss America 1945 (born 1924)

Fred Thurston, American football player (born 1933)

Janet Dailey, American author (born 1944)

C. N. Karunakaran, Indian painter and illustrator (born 1940)

Dennis Lindley, English statistician and academic (born 1923)

Peter O'Toole, British-Irish actor (born 1932)

George Rodrigue, American painter (born 1944)

John Graham, English general (born 1923)

Edward Jones, American police officer and politician (born 1950)