2014

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2014 (MMXIV) is the current year, and is a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar, the 2014th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 14th year of the 3rd millennium, the 14th year of the 21st century, and the 5th year of the 2010s decade.

The United Nations designated 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming and Crystallography.^[1]

Events

January

• January 1 – Latvia officially adopts the Euro currency and becomes the eighteenth Eurozone country.^[2]
• January 29 – Scientists in Japan announce that shocking blood cells with acid could also trigger the transformation into stem cells, a process far easier than producing IP cells. The cells are termed STAP (Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency) cells.^[3]

February

• February 7–23 – The 2014 Winter Olympics are held in Sochi, Russia.

Predicted and scheduled events

June

• June 12 – July 13 – The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be held in Brazil.

August

• August 24 – NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will cross the orbit of Neptune after travelling for over eight years. New Horizons is scheduled to reach its mission target, Pluto, in 2015.

September

• September 18 – The Scottish independence referendum is scheduled to be held.
• The first unmanned flight test of NASA's Orion spacecraft is scheduled to be launched.

December

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

Date unknown

• Moore's Law of continuous microchip miniaturization is likely to become obsolete in 2014 due to economic constraints.^[4]
• The International Cometary Explorer, a 1978 NASA solar probe that was repurposed for a mission to explore comets, will approach Earth for the first time in decades. Unless it is reactivated for a new mission, it has enough propellant to be re-captured in the Earth system and potentially recovered in orbit. It has already been donated to the Smithsonian Institution if it should be returned to Earth intact.
• The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report is scheduled to be published.^[5]
• JAXA's Hayabusa 2 asteroid sample return mission is expected to be launched.^[6]
• The first commercial products using memristor technology are expected to become available.^[7]

Deaths

January

Ariel Sharon

• January 5 – Eusébio, Portuguese footballer (b. 1942)
• January 7 – Run Run Shaw, Hong Kong filmmaker and entrepreneur (b. 1907)
• January 9
  • Amiri Baraka, American poet (b. 1934)
  • Dale T. Mortensen, American Nobel economist (b. 1939)
• January 10 – Zbigniew Messner, 9th Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Poland (b. 1929)
• January 11
  • Ariel Sharon, 11th Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1928)
  • Vugar Gashimov, Azerbaijani chess player (b. 1986)
• January 14 – Mae Young, American professional wrestler (b. 1923)
• January 15 – John Dobson, American amateur astronomer (b. 1915)
• January 16 – Hiroo Onoda, Japanese army officer (b. 1922)
• January 20 – Claudio Abbado, Italian conductor (b. 1933)
• January 23 – Riz Ortolani, Italian film composer (b. 1926)
• January 25 – Gyula Sax, Hungarian chess grandmaster (b. 1951)
• January 26 – José Emilio Pacheco, Mexican poet and writer (b. 1939)
• January 27 – Pete Seeger, American singer, songwriter, and musician (b. 1919)
• January 31 – Miklós Jancsó, Hungarian film director (b. 1921)

February

Philip Seymour Hoffman

• February 1
  • Luis Aragonés, Spanish football player and coach (b. 1938)
  • Maximilian Schell, Austrian-Swiss actor (b. 1930)
• February 2 – Philip Seymour Hoffman, American actor (b. 1967)

Major religious holidays and observances

• January 6 – Christmas (Armenian Church)
• January 7 – Christmas (Eastern Christianity)
• January 31 – Lunar New Year
• February 1 – Imbolc (celebrated on February 2 in some places)
• March 4 – Shrove Tuesday
• March 5 – Ash Wednesday
• March 20 – Vernal equinox
• April 14–22 – Passover
• April 20 – Easter
• May 1 – May Day
• May 13 – Vesak (celebrated on May 14 and May 15 in some places)
• June 8 – Pentecost
• June 15 – All Saints' Day (Eastern Christianity)
• June 21 – Summer solstice, also known as Midsummer
• July 28 – Eid al-Fitr
• August 1 – Lammas
• September 23 – Autumnal equinox
• September 25 – Rosh Hashanah (Judaism)
• October 4 – Eid al-Adha
• October 4 – Yom Kippur
• October 23 – Diwali
• November 1 – All Saints' Day (Western Christianity) and Samhain
• December 17 – Hanukkah
• December 21 – Winter solstice
• December 25 – Christmas (Western Christianity)

In fiction

References