TODAY IN HISTORY: MAY 14

May 14 1796: Jenner Tested Smallpox Vaccine
Edward Jenner, an English country doctor from Gloucestershire, administered the world’s first vaccination as a preventive treatment for smallpox, a disease that had killed millions of people over the centuries.
While still a medical student, Jenner noticed that milkmaids who had contracted a disease called cowpox, which caused blistering on cow’s udders, did not catch smallpox. Unlike smallpox, which caused severe skin eruptions and dangerous fevers in humans, cowpox led to few ill symptoms in these women.

On May 14, 1796, Jenner took fluid from a cowpox blister and scratched it into the skin of James Phipps, an eight-year-old boy. A single blister rose up on the spot, but James soon recovered. On July 1, Jenner inoculated the boy again, this time with smallpox matter, and no disease developed. The vaccine was a success. Doctors all over Europe soon adopted Jenner’s innovative technique, leading to a drastic decline in new sufferers of the devastating disease.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, scientists following Jenner’s model developed new vaccines to fight numerous deadly diseases, including polio, whooping cough, measles, tetanus, yellow fever, typhus, and hepatitis B, and many others. More sophisticated smallpox vaccines were also developed and by 1970 international vaccination programs, such as those undertaken by the World Health Organization, had eliminated smallpox worldwide.

May 14 1897

For a large tract of British Somaliland (Western Hawd), and a right for duty free imports through the port of Zeila, Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia agreed to give aid to the British against the Mahdists -- Also agreed at the same time to a commercial pact with the Mahdists.

May 14 1910

Britain, Germany, and Belgium held a conference to set the frontiers of the Belgian Congo.

May 14 1925

France has had limited successes against the Rif rebels and their leader Abd al-Krim.

May 14 1931

Riots disrupted the general election in Cairo; 23 die and 180 were injured.

May 14 1948: State of Israel proclaimed

On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel, establishing the first Jewish state in 2,000 years. In an afternoon ceremony at the Tel Aviv Art Museum, Ben-Gurion pronounced the words “We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel,” prompting applause and tears from the crowd gathered at the museum. Ben-Gurion became Israel’s first premier.

In the distance, the rumble of guns could be heard from fighting that broke out between Jews and Arabs immediately following the British army withdrawal earlier that day. Egypt launched an air assault against Israel that evening. Despite a blackout in Tel Aviv–and the expected Arab invasion–Jews joyously celebrated the birth of their new nation, especially after word was received that the United States had recognized the Jewish state. At midnight, the State of Israel officially came into being upon termination of the British mandate in Palestine.

Modern Israel has its origins in the Zionism movement, established in the late 19th century by Jews in the Russian Empire who called for the establishment of a territorial Jewish state after enduring persecution. In 1896, Jewish-Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl published an influential political pamphlet called The Jewish State, which argued that the establishment of a Jewish state was the only way of protecting Jews from anti-Semitism. Herzl became the leader of Zionism, convening the first Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1897. Ottoman-controlled Palestine, the original home of the Jews, was chosen as the most desirable location for a Jewish state, and Herzl unsuccessfully petitioned the Ottoman government for a charter.

May 14 1948

Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel by David Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv.

May 14 1951

After a vote dominated by the Afrikaner Nationalist majority in the South African Parliament people of Colour (i.e. mixed race) will be removed from the electoral register. The Minister of the Interior, Dr Theophilus Donges, has said it is necessary to avoid the collapse of white civilisation in the whole of Africa.

May 14 1964

Soviet premier Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev and Egyptian premier Gamal Abdel Nasser officiated at the ceremony to blow up a sand barrage and divert the Nile into a temporary canal -- to allow the next stage of the construction of the Aswan High Dam. International appeals are being made to save Egypt's ancient temples and tombs which will be flooded when the dam is finally completed.

May 14 1978
Communist-backed Katangan gendarmes, who had been living in neighbouring Angola, invaded the region around Kolwezi in southern Zaire. Zairian troops had been sent into quell the violence.

May 14 1991
Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to six years for her 'complicity' in the kidnapping and beating of four youths, one of whom was later found dead. The actual crime was committed by her 'thuggish' bodyguards, the 'Mandela United Football Club. Madikizela-Mandela was released on bail.

Source: africanhistory.about.com