Today in History, December 14th
On December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen's team became the first to reach the South Pole. Plus George Washington's death and the Dayton Accords.
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December 14 is best known for 1911, when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team became the first people to reach the South Pole. It is also the date George Washington died at Mount Vernon in 1799 and the day the Dayton peace accords for Bosnia were formally signed in 1995.
The big story: Amundsen Reaches the South Pole (1911)
It was a race, even if only one side planned it that way. Roald Amundsen, already a veteran of polar ice, sailed into Antarctica’s Bay of Whales early in 1911 and built his base camp there. His spot was about 60 miles closer to the Pole than the camp of his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott. Both men set out for the Pole in October 1911. Amundsen bet on sled dogs to haul his supplies. On December 14, 1911, his team stood at the bottom of the world, the first people ever to do so. They made it back to base safely in late January 1912. Scott’s party reached the Pole on January 18, 1912, more than a month later, and found they had been beaten. All five men died on the journey home, Scott and his last two companions trapped by a storm in a tent only 11 miles from safety. Amundsen’s victory and Scott’s tragedy have been told side by side ever since.
More events on December 14
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1799 | George Washington died at Mount Vernon, his Virginia estate, at age 67. |
| 1819 | Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state. |
| 1900 | German physicist Max Planck put forward his work on blackbody radiation, usually counted as the birth of quantum theory. |
| 1909 | Drivers took their first test laps on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s new surface of 3.2 million paving bricks, the origin of its nickname, “the Brickyard.” |
| 1939 | The League of Nations expelled the Soviet Union for invading Finland, one of the League’s last acts. |
| 1961 | In public letters to South Vietnam’s president, John F. Kennedy promised to step up U.S. aid against the communist insurgency there. |
| 1995 | The Dayton Accords, the peace deal that ended the war in Bosnia, were formally signed in Paris. The talks had wrapped up in Ohio three weeks earlier. |
| 2012 | A gunman killed 20 first graders and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. |
Born on December 14
- 1895: George VI, king of the United Kingdom through World War II, born at Sandringham.
- 1897: Margaret Chase Smith, Maine Republican and the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.
- 1916: Shirley Jackson, author of the short story “The Lottery.”
- 1946: Patty Duke, Oscar-winning actress of The Miracle Worker and star of The Patty Duke Show.
Sources
- Amundsen reaches South Pole, History.com
- George Washington dies, History.com
- Alabama Admitted to the Union, EBSCO Research Starters
- The birth of quantum theory, History.com
- Indy “Brickyard” is completed, History.com
- USSR expelled from the League of Nations, History.com
- Kennedy announces intent to increase aid to South Vietnam, History.com
- Dayton Accords, Britannica
- Gunman kills students and adults at Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school, History.com
- Margaret Chase Smith, Britannica
