What happened on September 14
All 5 specimens from this file, spanning 1812 to 2022, with the story behind each photograph.
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An emperor enters a capital city and finds it burning
Napoleon reached Moscow on 14 September 1812 expecting surrender. He found the city almost deserted, and within a day fires set by the departing Russians had destroyed roughly three quarters of it. There was nothing to winter in and nobody to negotiate with. The retreat that followed cost him most of an army of half a million men.
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A lawyer watching a bombardment writes the words to a national anthem
Francis Scott Key watched the British bombard Fort McHenry through the night of 13 September 1814, and at dawn on the 14th saw the American flag still flying. The poem he wrote that morning became "The Star-Spangled Banner". The flag itself, pictured, measured 30 by 42 feet.
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The youngest person ever to hold the presidency is sworn in
William McKinley died on 14 September 1901 of the gunshot wounds he had received eight days earlier, and Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in that afternoon aged forty-two - still the youngest person ever to hold the office. He had been made vice president partly to keep him out of the way.
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Savers queue in the street in the first British bank run for 150 years
On 14 September 2007 news broke that Northern Rock had asked the Bank of England for emergency support. Queues formed outside branches the same morning - the first run on a British bank since 1866. Around 2 billion pounds was withdrawn in three days, and the bank was nationalised within months. It was the opening act of the financial crisis in Britain.
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A monarch's coffin is carried through the capital to lie in state
Elizabeth II's coffin was carried from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall on 14 September 2022, drawn on the same gun carriage used at her father's funeral. Over 250,000 people filed past during the four days of lying in state, some queuing through the night for more than a dozen hours.