January 31 Lunar New Year
February 01 Imbolc (celebrated on February 2 in some places)
March 20 Vernal equinox
May 13 Vesak (Buddhism)
June 08 Pentecost
June 15 All Saints' Day (Eastern Christianity)
June 21 Summer solstice, also known as Midsummer
August 01 Lammas
Sept 23 Autumnal equinox
Sept 25 Rosh Hashanah (Judaism)
October 04 Eid al-Adha
October 23 Diwali
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.
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The United Nations designated 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming and Crystallography............................................................................................................................................................................
Events
January
- January 1 – Latvia officially adopts the Euro currency and becomes the eighteenth Eurozone country.
- January 29 – Cytologists led by Haruko Obokata announce that shocking blood cells with acid could 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.
- Storms of gigantic proportions arrive at the United Kingdom and are expected to besiege the UK until March.
February
- February 7–23 – The 2014 Winter Olympics are held in Sochi, Russia.
- February 13 – Belgium becomes the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia without any age limits.
- UK experiences blackouts due to the storms and fatalities happen across country.
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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 traveling 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.
- 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.
- JAXA's Hayabusa 2 asteroid sample return mission is expected to be launched.
- The first commercial products using memristor technology are expected to become available.
- The Permanent Court of Arbitration is expected to rule on Philippines v. China.
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Major "Religious Holidays" & Observances
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References
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