Today:
1040 – King Duncan I of Scotland was killed in battle by forces led by Macbeth, who subsequently became King of Scotland. The historical Macbeth was quite different from the character later made famous by Shakespeare.
1457 – The earliest known reference to the game of golf in Scotland appeared in a royal decree. King James II had previously tried to ban the game because it distracted men from practicing archery.
1842 – The Second Seminole War officially ended in Florida after nearly seven years of fighting between the United States and the Seminole people.
1880 – Construction of Cologne Cathedral in Germany was officially completed, more than 600 years after work on the enormous Gothic cathedral had begun in 1248.
1935 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, establishing a federal system of old-age benefits and laying the foundation for the modern Social Security program.
1936 – Rainey Bethea was executed in Owensboro, Kentucky, in what became the last public execution conducted in the United States. Thousands of spectators attended.
1945 – President Harry S. Truman announced that Japan had accepted the Allied terms of surrender, effectively bringing World War II to an end. August 14 became known as V-J Day in the United States, although the formal surrender was signed on September 2.
1947 – Pakistan became independent from British rule following the partition of British India. The country observes August 14 as its Independence Day.
1969 – British troops were deployed to Northern Ireland as violence escalated during the early stages of the Troubles. What was initially viewed as a temporary deployment lasted for decades.
2003 – A massive electrical blackout struck the northeastern United States and parts of Canada, affecting approximately 50 million people. It remains one of the largest power outages in North American history.