2014 in the United States

← 2013 2012 2011 2014 in the United States → 2015 2016 2017
Decades:	1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s
See also:	History of the United States (2008–present) Timeline of United States history (2010–present) List of years in the United States

Events in the year 2014 in the United States.

Incumbents

• President: Barack Obama (Democratic)
• Vice President: Joe Biden (Democratic)
• Chief Justice: John Roberts
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: John Boehner (R–Ohio)
• Senate Majority Leader: Harry Reid (D–Nevada)
• Congress: 113th

Events

January

• January 1
  • The following laws go into effect:
    • Thirteen states – Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington – all increase their minimum wages.
    • Numerous provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, go into effect.
    • Provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, signed into law by then-President George W. Bush, go into effect, banning the sale of 40-to-60 watt incandescent light bulbs throughout the nation.
    • The state of Oregon bans smoking in vehicles when children are present.
    • The state of Colorado allows the sale of recreational cannabis from legally licensed businesses.
  • A building explosion kills three and injures thirteen in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The cause is yet to be determined.
• January 6
  • 2014 BCS National Championship Game: The number-one-ranked Florida State Seminoles beats the number-two-ranked Auburn Tigers at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California by a score of 34–31.
  • The 2014 North American polar vortex hits the Northern United States, breaking coldest temperature records throughout the entire country.
• January 7 – All fifty of the United States experience temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F). The National Weather Service observes that "It's not unprecedented, but it is unusual."
• January 8 – The Baseball Writers' Association of America Baseball Hall of Fame announces its inductees. Pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine and slugger Frank Thomas are enshrined. Maddux sees his name appear on 97.2 percent of the ballots, falling short of the all-time mark still held by Tom Seaver, who was elected with 98.84 percent of the vote in 1992. Glavine receives 91.9 percent of the vote while Thomas is elected with 83.7 percent.
• January 9
  • Cygnus CRS Orb-1, the second flight of the Orbital Sciences Cygnus unmanned resupply spacecraft, launches successfully at 13:07 EST.
  • A steel storage tank near Charleston, West Virginia leaks the chemical 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM) in large quantities into the Elk River, part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, leaving 300,000 people in nine West Virginia counties without clean water.
• January 14 – A federal judge rules that Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional but immediately stays the ruling.
• January 16 – Nominations for the 86th Academy Awards are announced at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California. The nominees for Best Picture are 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, and The Wolf of Wall Street.
• January 20 – A feed processing plant in Omaha, Nebraska explodes, killing two people.
• January 25 – A gunman identified as 19-year-old Darion Marcus Aguilar opens fire at a shopping mall in Columbia, Maryland, killing two people and then himself. It is reported that the shooter was also carrying "crude explosives" at the time of the attack. Though authorities originally believed Aguilar had some relationship with the victims, this was later dismissed.
• January 26 – The price of a first-class mail stamp increases to $0.49.
• January 28 – President Barack Obama delivers his annual State of the Union Address, focusing on, among other issues, the country's environmental policies, creating jobs and immigration reform, saying he wants 2014 to be a "year of action." Special attention is brought to Obama's willingness to circumvent the decisions of Congress should they not go forward with his plans, which some critics believe would overstep his executive powers and undermine the system of checks and balances.

February

February 3: Janet Yellen - 15th Chairperson of the Federal Reserve

• February 1 – The Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees are announced: Walter Jones, Derrick Brooks, Michael Strahan, Andre Reed, Aeneas Williams, Claude Humphrey, and Ray Guy.
• February 2 – Super Bowl XLVIII is played at MetLife Stadium at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Seattle Seahawks win their first Super Bowl by defeating the Denver Broncos by a score of 43–8.
• February 3 – Janet Yellen succeeds Ben Bernanke to become the 15th Chairperson of the Federal Reserve as well as the first woman to hold the position.
• February 4
  • Sixteen missing children are rescued from Super Bowl-associated sex-trade slavery in an FBI sting.
  • American science educator and engineer Bill Nye (popularly known as "Bill Nye the Science Guy") defends evolution in the classroom in a debate with creationist Ken Ham on the topic of whether creation is a viable model of origins in the modern, scientific era.
• February 10 – The Obama Administration delays the employer mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for the second time.
• February 12
  • A federal judge rules that Kentucky's ban on recognizing same-sex marriages performed outside the state is unconstitutional but later stays the ruling until March 20.
  • President Obama signs an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contract workers from $7.25 to $10.10.
• February 13
  • A federal judge rules that Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional but immediately stays the ruling.
  • A federal judge rules that California's gun law restricting concealed weapons is unconstitutional because it violates the Second Amendment.
  • Comcast buys Time Warner Cable for $45 billion. If approved by the government, the merger will become the largest cable network provider in the nation.
  • The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility opens in the Mojave Desert of California, producing over 392 megawatts of electricity at full capacity and becoming the world's largest solar thermal power plant to date.
• February 14 – Workers at the Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly Plant in Tennessee reject unionizing by a vote of 712–626. The result is considered by many media outlets to be a defeat for labor unions in the United States.
• February 17 – The Tonight Show broadcasts its first episode in New York City in nearly 42 years with new host Jimmy Fallon. The nationally televised late-night talk show moved to Los Angeles in 1972.
• February 19 – A Nebraska judge rules that allowing the governor to directly approve the Keystone XL pipeline and bypass legislative commissions is unconstitutional, further complicating the widely publicized project to connect the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico.
• February 23 – In NASCAR, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. eventually wins the Daytona 500, ending a 55-race winless streak in the Sprint Cup Series after the race is red-flagged for several hours due to heavy rain and a tornado warning is put into effect for the area.
• February 24 – The Obama Administration proposes to significantly reduce the military budget to $522 billion and to shrink the army to a level not seen since the years prior to World War II.
• February 26
  • A federal judge rules that Texas's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional but immediately stays the ruling.
  • Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona vetoes a bill that would have allowed business owners to refuse to serve people who are LGBT based solely on their religious beliefs.

March

File:Oso landslide (WSP).png

March 22: 2014 Oso mudslide

• March 2 – 86th Academy Awards:
  • 12 Years a Slave wins the Academy Award for Best Picture.
  • The Great Beauty, an Italian film, wins the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
  • Alfonso Cuarón wins the Academy Award for Best Director for the film Gravity.
  • Matthew McConaughey wins the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club.
  • Cate Blanchett wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Blue Jasmine.
  • Frozen wins the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
• March 7 – Massachusetts bans the taking of candid upskirt photographs in public. Two days earlier, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had ruled that the taking of such photographs is legal.
• March 12 – A gas explosion collapses a building in New York City, killing at least eight people and injuring over 70 others. The search for additional victims is ongoing.
• March 13
  • At the 2014 South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, a suspected drunk driver crashes through barricades and drives through a crowd of pedestrians, killing two people and injuring over 20 others.
  • President Obama signs an executive order directed at the Department of Labor to expand its role in regulating overtime pay.
• March 18 – A television helicopter crashes in Seattle, Washington, killing two people.
• March 21 – A federal judge rules that Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and does not stay the ruling, although the ruling is later suspended until at least March 26 by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in order to consider an appeal by Michigan's Attorney General.
• March 22
  • A landslide in Oso, Washington kills at least 30 people and leaves at least 15 missing.
  • A barge carrying nearly one million gallons of oil collides with a ship in Galveston Bay off the coast of Texas, causing a fuel oil spill.
• March 24
  • Disney announces that it is buying Maker Studios, an internet-video based company, for $500 million.
  • A train derailment of the CTA Blue Line occurs at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, leaving 32 people injured.
• March 26
  • Facebook announces that it is buying Oculus, a firm that specializes in virtual reality displays, for $2 billion.
  • Connecticut raises its minimum wage from $8.70 to 10.10 by 2017, making it the first state to answer President Obama's call for an increase in the minimum wage.
• March 28 – A 5.1 magnitude earthquake strikes the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Following, seismologists remained concerned that the quake, originating from the usually silent Puente Hills Fault, could trigger quakes in the future stronger than those that originate from the more notable San Andreas Fault. Although no injuries or major damage was reported, the earthquake itself spawned a social media fad of people uploading selfies during the duration of the quake.
• March 31 – Open enrollment for the first year of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's health insurance marketplace ends.

April

• April 1 – General Motors CEO Mary Barra testifies in front of a Congressional panel regarding the safety of their vehicles following a massive recall and the deaths of 13 people.
• April 2
  • A gunman identified as Ivan Lopez opens fire at the Fort Hood military base in Killeen, Texas, killing 3 people and then himself. Fort Hood was previously the site of a shooting in 2009.
  • In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court strikes down certain campaign finance regulations limiting the total amounts of money that individuals can contribute to political campaigns during two-year election cycles.
• April 3 – Mississippi allows individuals and businesses to deny service to anyone, should it conflict with their religious beliefs.

Ongoing

• War in Afghanistan (2001–present)

Predicted and scheduled events

April

• April 7 – 2014 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament Championship Game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
• April 10 – SpaceX CRS-3: the fifth flight for SpaceX's uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft, the first flight for the company's two-stage Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle, and the third SpaceX operational mission contracted to NASA under a Commercial Resupply Services contract.
• April 10 – 13 – 2014 Masters Tournament.

May

• May 3 – 2014 Kentucky Derby.
• May 25 – 2014 Indianapolis 500.

June

• June 1 – Illinois's same-sex marriage law officially goes into effect; however, several county clerks began issuing licenses prior to this date.
• June 5 – June – 2014 NBA Finals.
• June – June – 2014 Stanley Cup Finals.
• June 12 – 15 – 2014 U.S. Open at the Pinehurst Resort in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

August

• August 24 – 66th Primetime Emmy Awards.
• August 25 – September 8 – 2014 U.S. Open.

September

• September 14 – Miss America pageant.
• September 18 – The first unmanned flight test of NASA's Orion spacecraft is scheduled to be launched.
• September 22 – MAVEN is to be inserted into an areocentric elliptic orbit around Mars, 6,200 km (3,900 mi) by 150 km (93 mi) above the planet's surface.

October

• October 1 – CVS Pharmacy plans to phase out all cigarette sales in their stores by this date.
• October – October – 2014 World Series.

November

• November 4 – The 2014 Senatorial, Congressional, and gubernatorial midterm elections will be held.

December

• December – 2014 Heisman Trophy.
• December 31 – The United States and the United Kingdom will officially withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, marking the end of their 13-year involvement in the Afghan Civil War.

TBA

• One World Trade Center, which began construction at the former site of the World Trade Center, is scheduled to be opened sometime in 2014.

Births in 2014

• February 20 – Princess Leonore, Duchess of Gotland, daughter of Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Christopher O'Neill

Deaths in 2014

January

• January 1 – Juanita Moore, actress (b. 1914)
• January 5 – Jerry Coleman, American baseball player, manager, broadcaster, and Marine Corps pilot (b. 1924)
• January 10 – Sam Berns, notable victim of rare congenital deformity (b. 1996)
• January 16 – Ruth Duccini, actress and last surviving female "Munchkin"-character of The Wizard of Oz (b. 1918)

February

• February 2 – Philip Seymour Hoffman, actor and producer (b. 1967)
• February 3 – Richard Bull, actor (b. 1924)
• February 6 – Ralph Kiner, American baseball player, announcer, and Navy pilot (b. 1922)
• February 10 – Shirley Temple, actress, diplomat, and wife of John Agar (b. 1928)
• February 12 – Sid Caesar, comedian and actor (b. 1922)
• February 13 – Ralph Waite, actor (b. 1928)
• February 14 – John Henson, puppeteer and son of the late Jim Henson (b. 1965)
• February 19 – Hailey Owens, murder victim (b. 2003 or 2004)
• February 20 – Garrick Utley, television journalist (b. 1939)
• February 24 – Harold Ramis, actor and director (b. 1944)

March

• March 8 – William Guarnere, World War II veteran (b. 1923)
• March 9 – William Clay Ford, Sr., business executive and American football owner (b. 1925)
• March 13 – Reubin Askew, 37th Governor of Florida (b. 1928)
• March 15 – David Brenner, comedian and actor (b. 1936)
• March 19 – Fred Phelps, minister (b. 1929)
• March 25 – Ralph Wilson, American football owner (b. 1918)
• March 27 – James R. Schlesinger, 12th Secretary of Defense (b. 1929)
• March 31
  • Charles Keating, athlete, lawyer, and banker (b. 1923)
  • Frankie Knuckles, disc jockey and record producer (b. 1955)

April

• April 3 – Tommy Lynn Sells, murderer (b. 1964)

See also

• History of the United States
• Outline of United States history
• Timeline of United States history
• Timeline of United States history (1990–present)
• United States at the 2014 Winter Olympics

External links

• Media related to 2014 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons