Today in History: May 14, Lewis and Clark Expedition begins

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Today is Thursday, May 14, the 134th day of 2026. There are 231 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On May 14, 1804, the Lewis and Clark expedition, organized to explore the Louisiana Territory as well as the Pacific Northwest, began its journey near present-day Hartford, Illinois.

Also on this date:

In 1607, Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was established by members of the Virginia Company.

In 1796, English physician Edward Jenner successfully inoculated 8-year-old James Phipps against smallpox by using cowpox matter. (Smallpox would be declared the first fully eradicated human disease in 1980.)

In 1948, the independent state of Israel was proclaimed in Tel Aviv by David Ben-Gurion, who became its first prime minister.

In 1955, representatives from eight Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, signed the Warsaw Pact in Poland. (The pact was dissolved in 1991.)

In 1961, Freedom Rider civil rights activists were attacked by violent mobs in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama.

In 1973, NASA launched Skylab, the first American space station, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

In 1988, an inebriated driver of a pickup truck traveled the wrong way on a Kentucky interstate and slammed into a church group bus, killing 24 children and three others returning home from an Ohio amusement park. The fiery collision was one of America's deadliest drunken driving crashes on record.

In 2022, an 18-year-old white supremacist wearing body armor opened fire in a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people before being taken into custody. (The gunman, Payton Gendron, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in February 2023.)

Today’s Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Famer Tony Pérez is 84. Filmmaker George Lucas is 82. Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis is 75. Musician David Byrne is 74. Actor Tim Roth is 65. Actor Cate Blanchett is 57. Filmmaker Sofia Coppola is 55. Former NFL running back Frank Gore is 43. Actor Amber Tamblyn is 43. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is 42. Former NFL tight end Rob Gronkowski is 37. Actor Miranda Cosgrove is 33. Soccer player Rúben Dias is 29. Olympic gold medalist hockey player Jack Hughes is 25.