2014 January 1 Colorado sells cannabis for recreational use
Stores open in the US state of Colorado freely selling 'recreational' cannabis, under a new state law

2014 March 8 Malasia Airlines Flight 370 disappears
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777 en route to Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board, loses contact with the ground for unknown reasons but flies on for five hours and vanishes, causing a massive international search.

2014 March 21 Russia annexes Crimea
Russia formally annexes Crimea after President Vladimir Putin signs a bill finalizing the process.

2014 April 5-12 Armed Standoff at Bundy Ranch in Nevada.
Supporters of cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and law enforcement confront each-other following a 21-year legal dispute in which the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) obtained court orders directing Bundy to pay over $1 million in withheld grazing fees for Bundy's use of federally owned land.

2014 April 14 Boko Haram takes girls hostage in Nigeria
In the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping: more than 250 girls and women are abducted by Boko Haram to be held hostage.

2014 May 5 Boko Haram kill approximately 300 people.
Less than two weeks after the abduction of the Nigerian schoolgirls Boko Haram militants make a night raid on the towns of Gamboru and Ngala, killing about 300 people

2014 May 20 Terrorists bomb Jos, killing 118 people.
Lethal attacks attributed to Boko Haram take place in a marketplace and bus station in Jos, Nigeria

2014 ISIS, or ISIL, spreads terror
A Sunni militant group emerges calling itself the Islamic State, now widely known as ISIS.

2014 June 12 ISIS kills Iraqi Air Force cadets.
In the Camp Speicher massacre Isis kills 1,566 Shia Iraqi Air Force cadets. It is the second deadliest terrorist attack in history.

2014 July & August The Gaza war
2,100 Palestinians and 71 Israelis are killed in seven weeks of fighting

2014 August 3 Thousands of Yazidis massacred in Sinjar
The Sinjar massacre is the beginning of ISIS attacks resulting in the massacre of over 4,000 Yazidis in Iraq's Sinjar District.

2014 August 9 18 year old Michael Brown Jr. shot
The shooting of Michael Brown, an African American, by a police officer occurs in Ferguson, Missouri triggering riots.

2014 November 12 Spacecraft lands on comet
The uncrewed Rosetta spacecraft's Philae probe successfully lands on Comet 67P, the first time in history that a spacecraft has landed on such an object.

2014 December 16 Taliban mass shooting in Pakistan
Peshawar school massacre: The Pakistani Taliban carry out a mass shooting, killing at least 145 people, mostly schoolchildren.