#TodayInHistory – December 14

December 14 – Some important events on this day.

557 👉🏼 Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, is significantly damaged by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake
644 👉🏼 Uthman ibn Affan, companion of Muhammad, appointed 3rd Caliph of Islam
1287 👉🏼 During St. Lucia’s Flood in Northwest Netherlands the Zuiderzee seawall collapses with loss of over 50,000 lives. Fifth largest recorded flood in history
1542 👉🏼 Princess Mary Stuart succeeds her father James V and becomes Queen Mary I of Scotland at 6 days old
1774 👉🏼 First incident of American Revolution – 400 New Hampshire militiamen successfully attack Fort William and Mary
1812 👉🏼 The French invasion of Russia, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, officially ends with the French having lost as many as 530,000 people
1900 👉🏼 Birth of Quantum Physics: German Physicist Max Planck presents a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law
1901 👉🏼 1st table tennis tournament is held at the London Royal Aquarium
1911 👉🏼 Norwegian Roald Amundsen’s expedition is the 1st to each the South Pole.
1967 👉🏼 DNA created in a test tube

1995 👉🏼 The Dayton Agreement is signed in Paris by leaders of various governments ending the conflict in the former Yugoslavia including Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović, Franjo Tuđman and Bill Clinton.
After the death of leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980, Yugoslavia began to breakup into its various constituent ethnic parts. The collapse of the Soviet Union accelerated this process, and by 1992 the Balkans region was once again aflame. The Bosnian War was the longest and the deadliest of these conflicts, fought by complex and changing sides of Bosnians, Serbs and Croats.
By 1995 the conflict had reached a military stalemate. The Bosnian capital Sarajevo had been under the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare (1,425 days). NATO had intervened against Serbian positions beginning in 1995, which proved decisive in bringing the different sides to the negotiating table. They met in Dayton, Ohio, from November 1 to 21, 1995, with a deal agreed, to be signed formally in Paris the next month.
Under the Dayton Agreement the war ended and all sides recognized a single sovereign state known as Bosnia and Herzegovina. This country was to be divided into two parts, the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska and the Croat-Bosniak Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This remains Bosnia’s political situation and structure to this day. The war cost the lives of over 100,000 people and led to the first genocide in Europe since World War II, at Srebrenica.

2016 👉🏼 University of Toronto scientists present findings of the world’s oldest water – 2 billion years old from a mine in Canada