Historical Events on April 13

Events 1 - 200 of 202

• 837 Best view of Halley's Comet in 2,000 years
• 989 Battle at Abydos: Byzantine emperor Basilius II beats Bardas Phocas
• 1055 Bishop Gebhard van Eichstattt named Pope Victor II

• 1059 Papal bull "In nomine Domini" (In the Name of the Lord) issued by Pope Nicholas II establishing popes elected by Bishops and Cardinals not appointed by their predecessor
• 1111 After months of controversy Pope Paschal II crowns Henry V, the King of Germany and Italy, as the Holy Roman Emperor
• 1180 Diet of Gelnhausen; Henry the Lion deprived of the Duchy of Saxony
• 1204 Crusaders occupy Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade
• 1250 The Seventh Crusade is defeated in Egypt, Louis IX of France captured
• 1256 The Grand Union of the Augustinian order formed when Pope Alexander IV issues papal bull Licet ecclesiae catholicae
• 1346 Pope Clemens VI declares German emperor Louis of Bavaria, envoy
• 1517 Ottoman army occupies Cairo

• 1556 Portuguese converted Christian Marranos who revert to Judaism burned by order of Pope

• 1598 Edict of Nantes grants political rights to French Huguenots
• 1640 English Short Parliament forms (till May 5)

• 1741 Dutch people protest poor quality of bread
• 1741 Royal Military Academy forms at Woolwich, England

• 1759 French beat European Allies in Battle of Bergen

• 1796 First elephant arrives in US from India
• 1829 The Roman Catholic Relief Act passed by the British Parliament; it was the culmination of the process of Catholic Emancipation throughout the UK.
• 1834 HMS Beagle anchors at river mouth of Rio Santa Cruz, Patagonia
• 1840 William Henry Lane ("Juda") perfects tap dance
• 1842 Lord Rosse successfully casts 72" (183-cm) mirror for a telescope

• 1863 Battle of Irish Bend, Louisiana (Fort Bisland)
• 1863 Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled is incorporated in the State of New York
• 1865 Raleigh, North Carolina, captured by Union forces

• 1870 Metropolitan Museum of Art forms in NYC, opening in the Dodworth Building at 681 Fifth Avenue
• 1873 Colfax Massacre in Grant Parish, Louisiana (60 blacks killed)
• 1882 Anti-Semitic League forms in Prussia
• 1883 US prospector Alfred Packer convicted of manslaughter though accused of cannibalism

• 1904 A squadron of the Russian fleet is decoyed out of Port Arthur by Japanese maneuvers, when they realize they are sailing into a trap; their battleship Petropavlovsk hits a mine and sinks, with a loss of 700 men
• 1904 Battle of Oviumbo (in modern Namibia): Herero tribesmen rise up against German colonists

• 1906 Mutiny on Portuguese battleships Dom Carlos & Vasco da Gama
• 1908 Groundbreaking for Philadelphia's Shibe Park, home of MLB Athletics (AL), 1909-54, MLB Phillies (NL), 1938-70, and NFL Eagles, 1940-57
• 1909 In Constantinople the primarily Albanian First Army Corps seizes the parliament building and telegraphs offices, forcing the Ottoman statesman Hilmi Pasha to resign

• 1911 Polo Grounds grandstand & left field bleachers go up in flames in Manhattan, New York City
• 1911 The US House of Representatives votes to institute direct elections of senators to Congress, a step towards direct democracy
• 1912 Royal Flying Corps forms (later Royal Air Force)
• 1914 1st Federal League Game: Baltimore Terrapins beat Buffalo Blues 3-2
• 1918 Electrical fire kills 38 mental patients at Oklahoma State Hospital
• 1919 British troops open fire on demonstrators in Amritsar, India, killing 350
• 1919 Establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea
• 1920 1st woman US Civil Service Commissioner, Helen Hamilton appointed
• 1921 Foundation of the Spanish Communist Workers' Party.
• 1923 US Army wins 1st college three-weapon fencing championships
• 1924 Greek plebiscite for a republic
• 1925 Virginia Theater (ANTA, Guild) opens at 245 W 52nd St NYC

• 1926 Cyclists without bicycle-tax-stamp rounded up in Amsterdam
• 1927 Stanley Cup Final, Ottawa Auditorium, Ottawa, ON: Ottawa Senators beat Boston Bruins, 3-1 for a 2-0-2 series win
• 1928 1st trans atlantic flight Europe-US (Fitzmaurice-von Hunefeld-Köhl)
• 1933 1st flight over Mount Everest (Lord Clydesdale)

• 1934 4.7 million US families report receiving welfare payments
• 1934 US Congress passes Johnson Debt Default Act
• 1936 Ioannis Metaxas becomes Prime Minister of Greece
• 1938 Clifford Goldsmith's play "What a Life" premieres at The Biltmore Theater, NYC
• 1939 The Hindustani Lal Sena (Indian Red Army) is formed and vows to engage in armed struggle against the British.
• 1939 W Saroyan's "My Heart's in the Highlands" premieres in NYC
• 1940 American athlete Cornelius "Dutch" Warmerdam, using a bamboo pole, becomes 1st man to pole vault 15 ft, at University of California, Berkeley
• 1940 Second battle of Narvik; 3 German destroyers and one U-boat sunk by the Royal Navy, 5 more German destroyers scuttled
• 1940 Stanley Cup Final, Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Ontario: New York Rangers beat Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-2 for 4-2 series victory; Rangers last Cup win for 54 years
• 1941 Heavy German assault on Tobruk
• 1941 Pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed.
• 1943 Catholic University Nijegen closes

• 1943 Nazis discover mass grave of Polish officers near Katyn
• 1944 New Zealand and the Soviet Union establish diplomatic relations
• 1944 South Carolina rejects black suffrage
• 1944 Stanley Cup Final, Montreal Forum, Montreal, Quebec: Montreal Canadiens beat Chicago Blackhawks, 5-4 in overtime for a 4-0 series sweep; Canadiens' first SC triumph since 1931

• 1945 Canadian soldier Léo Major single-handedly liberates Dutch town of Zwolle by fooling Germans into thinking a raid had begun
• 1945 WWII: Canadian army liberates Teuge & Assen, Netherlands, from Nazis
• 1945 WWII: Russian Red Army occupies Vienna, Austria
• 1945 WWII: US Marines conquer Minna Shima off Okinawa, Japan
• 1946 Belgian Prime Minister Acker proclaims wage & price freeze ended
• 1946 Eddie Klepp, a white pitcher signed by defending Negro League champ Cleveland Buckeyes, is barred from field in Birmingham, Alabama
• 1948 Hadassah Convoy Massacre: Vehicles bringing Jewish staff and medical supplies to Hadassah Hospital and University on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem attacked by Arab forces; 79 killed by bombs, grenades, and sniper fire
• 1949 Philip S. Hench at Mayo Clinc announces discovery of cortisone to treat rheumatoid arthritis
• 1953 1st game of Milwaukee Braves, they beat Cincinnati Reds 2-0
• 1954 Baltimore Orioles 1st game, loses to Tigers in Detroit 3-0

• 1955 20.33" (51.64 cm) of rainfall, Axis, Alabama (then state record, eclipsed in 1997)
• 1956 KETA TV channel 13 in Oklahoma City, OK (PBS) begins broadcasting
• 1957 11th Tony Awards: "Long Day's Journey into Night" (play) & "My Fair Lady" (musical) win
• 1957 Saturday postal delivery in US is temporarily halted due to lack of funds
• 1958 12th Tony Awards: "Sunrise at Campobello" (play) and "The Music Man" (musical) win
• 1958 Classical pianist Van Cliburn (23) is the first American to win the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, USSR
• 1959 USAF launches Discoverer II into polar orbit
• 1959 Vanguard SLV-5 launched for Earth orbit (failed)
• 1959 Vatican edict forbids Roman Catholics from voting for communists
• 1960 US Department of Defense places "Transit 1B", 1st navigational satellite, in orbit around Earth
• 1961 UN General Assembly condemns South-Africa's apartheid

• 1962 US steel industry forced to give up price increases

• 1963 Pirate's Bob Friend balks 4 times in a game

• 1964 Ian Smith becomes Prime Minister of Rhodesia
• 1964 New Zealander Colin Bosher shears a record 565 sheep in 1 work day
• 1965 1st US Senate black page, Lawrence W Bradford Jr, 16, appointed by New York Senator Jacob Javits
• 1965 7th Grammy Awards: "The Girl From Ipanema", The Beatles win
• 1965 The Beatles record their single "Help!"
• 1966 Pan Am places $525,000,000 order for 25 Boeing 747s
• 1969 Closure of the Brisbane tramway network.
• 1970 Apollo 13 announces "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here", as Beech-built oxygen tank explodes en route to Moon
• 1970 Greek composer and counter-revolutionary Mikis Theordorakis freed from Oropos concentration camp, and allowed to be exiled to France
• 1970 Oakland uses gold-colored bases during the club's home opener: Rules Committee subsequently bans this innovation
• 1972 1st baseball players' strike ends after 13 days
• 1975 Chad military coup by General Odingar
• 1975 Christian Falange kills 27 Palestinians, begins Lebanese civil war
• 1976 1st NBA playoff game for Cleveland Cavliers, they lose 100-95 to Washington
• 1976 US Federal Reserve begins issuing $2 bicentennial notes
• 1978 Jackson slugs a 3-run HR in the 1st inning, & the field is showered
• 1979 Christian Turks occupy St Jansbasiliek
• 1979 Longest doubles ping-pong match ends after 101 hours
• 1979 Yusuf Lule becomes premier of Uganda
• 1980 US and its allies boycott the Summer Olympics in Moscow in protest against Russia's invasion of Afghanistan
• 1981 Pulitzer prize awarded to Beth Henley for "Crimes of the Heart"
• 1981 Washington Post journalist Janet Cooke wins Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing; she later admits story was a hoax and returns the prize
• 1983 Undefeated middleweight boxer Tony Ayala gets 35 years on sex assault
• 1983 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1984 11th NASA Space Shuttle Mission (41C): Challenger 5 returns to Earth
• 1984 India beat Pak by 58 runs to win 1st Asia Cricket Cup in Sharjah
• 1984 Pete Rose becomes 1st NL to get 4,000 hits in a career
• 1985 "TASS" denounces US boycott of Moscow Olympics
• 1985 Katrin Dörre wins 1st female World Cup marathon (2:33:30)

• 1985 Space Shuttle Atlantis ferried to Kennedy Space Center via Ellington AFB, Texas
• 1986 Boston Celtics end season with a 40-1 home win record

• 1986 Spanish Grand Prix decided by 0.014 of a second
• 1987 1st 3 San Diego Padres hit HRs off SF starter Roger Mason
• 1987 Portugal signs agreement to return Macau to China (in 1999)
• 1988 Italian government of Ciriaco De Mita forms
• 1990 4th largest NBA crowd (45,458) see Orlando play at Minneapolis

• 1990 NY Rangers beat NY Islanders 6-5, Rangers win preliminary, 4-1
• 1991 BPAA US Open by Pete Weber
• 1992 American Airlines reduce its 1st-class fares 20%-50%
• 1992 Crystal Pepsi begins test marketing in Sacramento, Providence, Denver, Dallas, and Grand Rapids
• 1992 Great Chicago Flood - Chicago's underground tunnels flood
• 1992 Longest 2 undefeated baseball teams to meet (NY Yanks 5-0 vs Toronto Blue Jays 6-0); Yanks score 3 in top of 9th to win 5-2
• 1992 Lou Carnesecca retires as coach of St John's basketball team
• 1992 Magnitude 5.5 earthquake hits Netherlands

• 1994 Presidential guard at Kigali, Rwanda, chops 1,200 church members to death
• 1994 Target date for Israeli complete withdrawal, doesn't occur
• 1994 United Arab Emirates' 1st official ODI, losing to India
• 1995 Yankees beat the Mets 2-0
• 1996 En route to NHL record 62 victories Detroit Red Wings win #61
• 1996 Ottawa Senators eliminate Stanley Cup Champs NJ Devils from playoff
• 1997 48th time opposing pitchers hit HRs, Carlos Perez (Mon)/Darren Holmes
• 1997 Hartford Whalers last NHL game

• 1997 Rare double doubleheader played in the same city Giants vs Mets & Oakland A's vs Yankees in NY after rain previous day

• 2002 Pedro Carmona, interim president of Venezuela, resigns one day after taking office

• 2006 Powerful tornadoes rip through Iowa City, Iowa.

• 2012 North Korean long range rocket testing ends in failure after the rocket broke up after launch
• 2013 20 civilians are killed by the government bombing of Saraqib, Idlib
• 2013 8 people are killed after a bomb explodes on a bus in Peshawar, Pakistan
• 2014 Kenyan Wilson Kipsang wins the London Marathon

• 2015 Migrant ship carrying around 550 sinks off the Libyan coast, about 400 drown
• 2019 Australian super-horse Winx ends extraordinary career with a 3rd Queen Elizabeth Stakes win in Sydney; 33 consecutive race wins, a world record 25 Group One victories and $26.4 million prize money
• 2019 Body of 38-year-old Filipino woman discovered in abandoned mine starts the hunt for Cyprus's first serial killer, at least 5 other bodies later discovered

• 2019 Gregg Popovich surpasses Lenny Wilkens to became the all-time winningest coach in NBA history with his 1,413th win as San Antonio Spurs beat Denver Nuggets, 101-96 in Western Conference Playoffs
• 2019 World's largest plane by wingspan at 117m (385 ft), the Stratolaunch, built as a flying launch pad for satellites, takes its first flight from Mojave, California

• 2021 US, South Africa and the EU authorities temporarily stop administrating Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines after six women developed blood clots (out of 6.8 million)

• 2022 At least 448 people killed after heavy rains and flooding in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, "one of the worst weather storms in the history of our country" according to authorities [1]
• 2023 American F.B.I. arrests 21-year-old member of Massachusetts Air National Guard for leaking classified documents, including national security secrets, on an online gaming chat group [1]
• 2023 Tropical Cyclone Ilsa makes landfall in remote western Australia, between De Grey and Pardoo Roadhouse, as a category five storm, setting a new sustained wind speed record of 218 kph (135 mph) [1]

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