On this day in 1966, Gwynfor Evans became Plaid Cymru's first MP when he won the Carmarthen by-election following the death of Labour's Megan Lloyd George. 

A shy and introverted individual, Evans was an unlikely participant in the melee of Westminster, an institution he regarded as "the very symbol of the complete subjugation of Wales, the most mighty manifestation of the Englishness which is killing our country". He returned to parliament in 1974, having lost his seat in 1970. He lost it again in 1979 and was never to return. He was only   a teenager when Plaid Cymru was founded in 1925 and he learnt Welsh as an adult. Educated at Aberystwyth and Oxford, during the Second World War he declared himself a conscientious objector, refusing to fight. Evans was elected president of Plaid Cymru in 1945, a position he went on to maintain for 36 years. In the 1950s, he led the campaign against the flooding  of the Tryweryn Valley and of the Welsh speaking Capel Celyn by the  Liverpool Water Corporation. 

In 1980, he announced that he would fast " to the death" if the  Conservative government failed to fulfil its pledge to establish a Welsh language television channel.  Evans regarded the entire history of Wales since the 16th century as constituting a sustained and deliberate English attempt to eradicate the Welsh language and culture and believed that the government's intention of reneging on its promise was part of this historic vendetta.  His threat was initially dismissed as an empty piece of rhetoric; but Evans was in poor health, and government supporters were alarmed at the prospective repercussions of his perceived  martyrdom, especially in a period of high unemployment and industrial closures in Wales. Only a matter of weeks before his fast was due to begin, Margaret Thatcher capitulated, and the creation of S4C was assured. The decision was hailed by Evans as "the biggest victory we have ever won for the Welsh language".

14th July 1892 saw the official inauguration of the Lake Vyrnwy Reservoir, which had been built to supply water to Merseyside and Liverpool.

 The dam was built by flooding the Welsh village of Llanwddyn, where 2 chapels, 3 inns, 10 farms and 37 houses were lost.  In 1965, despite fervent protests by politicians, nationalist organisations and the local population, the welsh-speaking village of Cwm Celyn was also flooded in order to create the Tryweryn reservoir. The local school, post office, chapel and cemetery were submerged forever.  These events inspired the Manic Street Preachers song Ready for Drowning, and Enya's Dan y Dwr.

David Mitchell (born 14 July 1974) has a Welsh mother. 

 He is a writer, comedian and actor who, along with his stage partner Robert Webb, formed Mitchell and Webb, a comedy duo. The pair, who met at Cambridge University when Mitchell was President of the Cambridge Footlights, starred in Peepshow, a sitcom on Channel 4. Mitchell, playing Mark Corrigan, won the British Academy award for Best Comedy Performance in 2009. Other television credits include The Mitchell and Webb Situation, That Mitchell and Webb Sound and more recently That Mitchell and Webb Look. They have also appeared in Apple's Get a Mac advertisement and a  film 'Magicians' which was released in 2007.

As a solo performer, Mitchell appears regularly on panel shows; as a team captain on Would I Lie to You?, hosting The Bubble, and as a regular guest on other panel shows, including Mock the Week, QI and Have I Got News for You. He hosts a comedy news programme, 10 O'Clock Live, and on radio, The Unbelievable Truth. In addition, he  regularly contributes to The Observer and The Guardian newspapers.

First screened on 14th July 1945, The Corn is Green is a film starring Bette Davis. It is set in a Welsh coal mining town, where Davis plays a schoolteacher who is set on providing the town's children with an adequate education, despite local opposition. It is based on a play by Emlyn Williams, a Welsh actor and dramatist.

Released from prison on this day 1577, John Callis, pirate. 

John Callis, who was born into a wealthy family in Tintern, Monmouthshire in the late 1550s, had a notorious career as a pirate. He was well connected to the gentry through his family, with ties to the local aristocracy, the Herbert family, and to the Earl of Pembroke.  He was well educated, and his family expected him to follow a conventional career as a cloth merchant in London. This lifestyle was clearly not adventurous enough, and by 1574 he had returned to South Wales and was running a ship, "The Cost Me Noughte" and was accused by the Admiralty of being 'a notorious pyrate haunting the coasts of Wales', conducting raids and harrying coastal trade, particularly in the areas around Laugharne  and Carew. He avoided prosecution, however, because of his high society connections.

Among his prizes in 1574 was an Italian cargo ship whose goods he sold in Cardiff and Bristol and a Portuguese vessel which he took in the Azores. He continued to attack ships in the Bristol Channel for the next three years, continuing to seem immune from prosecution thanks to his association with the landowners of Glamorgan and of Pembrokeshire. He created a headquarters for himself in what is now the Point House tavern in Angle near Pembroke on the Cleddau.
He was finally arrested in 1577 and taken in chains to the Tower of London. He avoided hanging, however, by turning informer, providing the authorities with incriminating information about members of the gentry throughout Britain who had profited from piracy.

There is no sound evidence as to how he met his end, although some claim that he continued his career as a pirate off the coast of North Africa before being killed in 1586.

14th July 2004 - The National Woollen Museum re-opened at Drefach Felindre.

A history of the woolen industry in Wales;

Historically, wool was the most significant and widespread industry in Wales. During the late 19th  and early 20th century, it was centred in the Teifi valley, with the mill in the village of Dre-Fach being one of the most thriving in the area. The dozens of small mills, with the twenty or so in neighbouring Pembrokeshire, earned the area the nickname 'The Huddersfield of Wales'.

Sheep farming is documented in the laws of Hywel Dda, by which time white sheep, probably imported by the Romans, had interbred with native dark-fleeced types to produce varieties of Welsh Mountain sheep.

By the 13th century, sheep farming had become an important industry, with wool providing a much needed source of income. Much of the Welsh wool was exported to  London via markets in Shrewsbury and Oswestry, then sold on to European markets. The Cistercian abbeys owned large flocks, notably at Strata Florida, Margam and Tintern. Flemish weavers were brought to West Wales in the 14th century and introduced the fulling mill or 'pandy' where the wool was cleansed of impurities, then dyed and finished to make it thicker and more durable. 

This process of manufacturing wool remained largely unchanged until the mid 18th century, with the wool carding, the spinning and the weaving being routinely done at home, mostly by women.

A radical change from the domestic system to the factory system took place during the 19th century when water wheels were used to operate carding and spinning machines. The increased mechanisation  of the industry prompted the reorganisation of the wool trade in Wales. When the power loom was invented in 1850 together with advances in the fulling process, the industry became more successful than ever, with hundreds of small factories appearing in rural areas between 1860 and 1900.