This Day In History : November 14

1969 United States

Apollo 12 launched

On November 14, 1969, Apollo 12, NASA's sixth crewed mission and the second to land humans on the Moon, launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Astronauts Charles Conrad, Alan Bean, and Richard Gordon embarked on the mission, successfully landing on the lunar surface and conducting scientific experiments.

Also on This Day in History November 14

Discover what happened on November 14 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries,
famous births and notable deaths.

Births on This Day, November 14
  • 1930 Edward H. White II

    First U.S. astronaut to walk in space. With James A. McDivitt he manned the four-day orbital flight of Gemini 4, launched on 3 Jun 1965.

  • 1771 Xavier Bichat

    Marie François Xavier Bichat was a French physician who was the first to investigate the body's organs as a complex of simpler structures.

  • 1863 Leo Hendrik Baekeland

    Leo Henricus Arthur Baekeland was a Belgian-American industrial chemist who invented the first thermosetting plastic, Bakelite, that did not soften when heated.

  • 1765 Robert Fulton

    American inventor, engineer and artist who brought steamboating from the experimental stage to commercial success.

  • 1739 William Hewson

    British anatomist and physiologist who described blood coagulation and isolated a key protein in the coagulation process, fibrinogen, which he called coagulable lymph.

Deaths on This Day, November 14
  • 1829 Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin

    French chemist who discovered the elements chromium (1797) and beryllium (1798).

  • 1886 Alexandre-Emile Beguyer de Chancourtois

    French geologist who was the first to arrange the chemical elements in order of atomic weights (1862).

  • 1716 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

    German philosopher, mathematician and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician, and also distinguished for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus.

  • 1919 John Aitken

    Scottish physicist and meteorologist who is known for his studies on atmospheric dust, the formation of dew, cyclones and evaporation.

  • 1938 Hans Christian Joachim Gram

    Hans Christian Joachim Gram was a Danish bacteriologist noted for his development of the Gram stain, still a standard technique to classify bacteria and make them more visible under a microscope.

1832

First U.S. street car

 In 1832, the first street car to be used in the U.S. took its initial trip with municipal officals in New York City.
1991

World Diabetes Day

In 1991, the World Diabetes Day was created by the International Diabetes Federation (ISF) and the World Health Organization to increase awareness of the health threat caused by diabetes.
1985

Discovery of Fullerene

In 1985, the first discovery of a fullerene, a molecule composed entirely of carbon, was published in the journal Nature. This breakthrough, led by Harold Kroto, Robert Curl, and Richard Smalley, unveiled a new form of carbon structure, marking a significant advancement in the field of chemistry and nanotechnology.
2018

Astronomers Discover Super-Earth Orbiting Barnard's Star

In November 2018, astronomers announced the discovery of a super-Earth planet orbiting Barnard's Star, a red dwarf located approximately 6 light years away from Earth. The planet, 3.2 times larger than Earth, marked a significant finding in exoplanetary research, offering insights into potentially habitable worlds beyond our solar system.
Holiday
Special day
Discover invention