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1914

year

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ2083
Source-derived summary

1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar, the 1914th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 914th year of the 2nd millennium, the 14th year of the 20th century, and the 5th year of the 1910s decade. As of the start of 1914, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

This year saw the beginning of what became known as the First World War, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. It also saw the first airline to provide scheduled regular commercial passenger services with heavier-than-air aircraft, with the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line.

Events

January

January 1 – The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line in the United States starts services between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida, becoming the first airline to provide scheduled regular commercial passenger services with heavier-than-air aircraft.

January 11

The Sakurajima volcano in Japan begins to erupt, becoming effusive after a large earthquake on January 13. The lava flow causes the island which it forms to be linked to the Ōsumi Peninsula.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “1914” as year. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around year.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1914, 1923—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with year providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “1914”, the useful work is to connect “year” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2083. The Library of Congress control number is sh2005000813. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914 and 1923.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1914”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1914 primary sources, 1914 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1914”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 1914” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.