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What happened on March 13 Please support our Sponsors - They help us keep this site Alive! 0607 12th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet 1138 Cardinal Gregorio Conti is elected anti-pope as Victor IV, succeeding Anacletus II. 1138 German king Koenraad II von Hohenstaufen crowned 1519 Cortez lands in México 1560 Spanish fleet occupies Djerba, at Tripoli 1564 Cardinal Granvelle flees Brussels 1567 Battle at Oosterweel: Spanish troops destroy Geuzenleger 1569 Battle of Jarnac, Count of Anjou defeats Huguenots 1591 Battle at Tondibi: Moroccans army under Judar beats sultan Askia Ishaq II of Songhai 1634 Académie Française opens 1639 Cambridge College renamed Harvard for clergyman John Harvard 1639 Harvard College was named for clergyman John Harvard. 1656 Jews are denied the right to build a synagogue in New Amsterdam 1677 Massachusetts gains title to Maine for $6,000 1735 The first US Moravian bishop, David Nitschmann, consecrated in Germany 1759 27th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet 1781 Sir William Herschel sees what he thinks is a comet but he really discovers the planet Uranus 1781 The German-born astronomer William Hershel discovers Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun and the third largest planet by diamete 1808 Denmark's demented Christian VII has died March 13 at age 59 after a 32-year reign 1809 Seven Swedish army officers break into the royal apartments March 13, seize the insane Gustav IV in a coup d'état, and conduct him to the château of Gripsholm 1835 Charles Darwin departs Valparaiso for Andes crossing 1845 Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto is premired in Leipzig with Ferdinand David as soloist. 1852 Uncle Sam cartoon figure made its debut in the New York Lantern weekly 1859 John Brown 1800-1859 brings first black slaves to Canada from the US via the Underground Railway; he is later made famous in a song, John Brown's Body, about a raid he made on Harper's Ferry, Virginia. 1861 Jefferson Davis signs bill authorizing use of slaves as soldiers 1865 US Confederate Congress calls on black slaves for field service 1868 Senate begins President Andrew Johnson impeachment trial 1869 Arkansas legislature passes anti-Klan law 1878 Oxford defeats Cambridge in their first golf match 1881 In Russia, Czar Alexander II is killed near the Winter Palace by a hand-bomb thrown by a member of the "People’s Will," a militant wing of the Narodniki movement, which advocated socialist reform in Russia and the elimination of the central government 1884 Siege of Khartoum Sudan begins 1884 The siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins (ends on January 26, 1885). 1884 US adopts Standard Time 1885 In Victoria British Columbia, the Legislature passes Chinese Restriction; bans entry of Chinese immigrants, later ruled unconstitutional 1887 Chester Greenwood of Maine patents earmuffs 1888 Great Blizzard of 1888 rages 1894 J L Johnstone of England invents horse racing starting gate 1897 San Diego State University founded. 1900 Boer War: British forces occupy Bloemfontein, Orange Free State. 1900 In France, length of a workday for women and children is limited to 11 hours by law. 1900 James William Tyrrell 1863-1945 starts 2,782 km survey trek from Great Slave Lake to Chesterfield Inlet. 1904 Bronze statue of Christ on Argentine-Chilian border dedicated 1909 Donald Alexander Smith, Lord Strathcona 1820-1914 sets up Strathcona Trust, a fund for military training and cadet corps in schools. 1913 Kansas legislature approves censorship of motion pictures 1915 Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson tries to catch a baseball dropped from an airplane, but the pilot substituted a grapefruit 1918 American Red Magen David (Jewish Red Cross) forms 1920 Wolfgang Kapp's coup attempt in Berlin fails 1921 Mongolia (formerly Outer Mongolia) declares independence from China 1921 Mongolia, under Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg, declares its independence from China. 1923 Lee de Forest demonstrates his sound-on-film moving pictures (New York NY) 1924 German Republic day 1925 Scopes Trial: A law in Tennessee prohibits the teaching of evolution. 1925 Tennessee makes it unlawful to teach evolution 1928 450 die in St Franciso Valley Dam burst (California) 1928 Eileen Vollick 1899-1972 gets pilot's licence; first Canadian woman to be a licensed pilot 1930 Clyde Tombaugh announces discovery of Pluto at Lowell Observatory 1930 Discovery of the planet Pluto by Clyde W Tombaugh made his discovery on February 18 and announced it on March 13 1930 The news of the discovery of Pluto was telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory. 1933 Great Depression: Banks in the United States begin to re-open after the Presidentially mandated "bank holiday". 1933 Josef Göbbels becomes German minister of Information & Propaganda 1935 Driving tests introduced in Great Britain 1938 "Anschluss," annexation of Austria to the Third Reich. 1940 Finland-Russian cease fire signed, Finland gives up Karelische 1940 Russo-Finnish Winter War ended. 1941 A Bougne forms AGRA (Amis du Grand Reich Allemand) 1942 Julia Flikke, Nurse Corps, becomes first woman colonel in US army 1943 Failed assassin attempt on Hitler during Smolensk-Rastenburg flight 1943 Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Krakw. 1943 World War II: In Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700. 1944 USSR recognizes Italian Badoglio government 1945 Queen Wilhelmina returns to Netherlands 1945 Sicherheitsdienst arrest Dutch resistance fighter Henry Werkman 1947 "Brigadoon" opens at Ziegfeld Theater NYC for 581 performances 1947 19th Academy Awards: "Best Years of Our Lives", Frederic March, Olivia de Havilland win 1950 General Motors reports net earnings of $656,434,232 (record) 1951 Israel demands DM 6.2 billion compensation from Germany 1954 Battle of in Bin Ph: Viet Minh forces attack the French. 1955 Bir BSD Mahendra succeeds Tribhubana as king of Nepal 1956 New Zealand bowl out West Indies for 77 at Eden Park to score their first Test Cricket win 1957 Bloody battles after anti-Batista demonstration in Havana Cuba 1957 Cuban student revolutionaries storm the presidential palace in Havana in a failed attempt on the life of President Fulgencio Batista. 1958 Govt troops land in Sumatra Indonesia 1961 Elizabeth Gurley Finn (70) becomes president of US Communist Party 1961 Floyd Patterson KOs Ingemar Johansson in 6 to retain heavyweight boxing title 1961 JFK sets up the Alliance for Progress 1961 Landslide in USSR, kills 145 1961 Major-General Allard the first Canadian to command a British army division 1961 Old type, black & white notes cease to be legal tender 1961 Pablo Picasso (79) marries his model Jacqueline Rocque (37) 1962 Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the USA, proposes a document, called Operation Northwoods, regarding performing terrorist attacks in Guantanamo Bay, to Secretary of Defense Robert Mcnamara. The proposal is scrapped and President John F. Kennedy removes Lemnitzer from his position. 1962 Yugoslavia grants 1,000 prisoners amnesty 1963 2 Russian reconnaissance flights over Alaska 1963 Indonesia & Netherlands recover diplomatic relations 1964 Turkey threatens Cyprus with armed attack 1965 Beatles' "Eight Days a Week", single goes #1 & stays #1 for 2 weeks 1965 Jeff Beck replaces Eric Clapton of the Yardbirds 1967 Congo sentences ex-premier Moïse Tsjombe to death 1968 Beatles release "Lady Madonna" in the UK 1969 Apollo 9 returns to Earth 1970 100 year Beehive anniversary ends in brawl in Amsterdam 1970 Digital Equipment Corp introduces PDP-11 minicomputer 1970 San Francisco city employees begin 4-day strike 1973 Syria adopts constitution 1974 Glenn Turner scores twin tons for New Zealand's first win against Australia 1977 Dennis Lillee takes 6-26, England all out 95 in Centenary Test 1978 GO introduces its first bi-level coaches. 1978 Moluccans "suicide commandos" occupies Province house 1978 Visitor posting - March 13 1978 Dean Thrumble was born 1978 The Canadian Radio & Television Commission rejects introduction of pay TV in Canada.. I guess we were not ready for it 1979 European Monetary System is established, ECU created 1979 Gairy dictatorship in Grenada overthrown by New Jewel Movement 1979 The New Jewel Movement, headed by Maurice Bishop, ousts Prime Minister Eric Gairy in a nearly bloodless coup d'etat in Grenada. 1980 Ford Motor Co found innocent in death of 3 women in a fiery Pinto 1981 Attempt on Pope John Paul II by Mehemet Ali Agca 1984 Last day of 1st-class cricket for G Chappell, R Marsh, B Laird 1984 Western Australia beat Queensland by four wickets to win the Sheffield Shield 1985 Funeral services held for Konstantin Chernenko (Moscow) 1986 Microsoft has its Initial public offering. 1986 Soyuz T-15 carries 2 cosmonauts to Soviet space station Mir 1986 Space probe Giotto encounters Halley's Comet 1987 John Gotti is acquitted of racketeering 1988 14th People's Choice Awards: Fatal Attraction, Bill Cosby win 1989 27th shuttle, Discovery 8, launched, first woman to do the countdown 1989 FDA orders recall of all Chilean fruit in US 1990 Nicholoas Braithwaite elected premier of Grenada 1991 Exxon pays $1-billion dollars in fines & cleanup of Valdez oil spill (Prince William Sound, Alaska) 1991 The United States Justice Department announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. 1992 570 die in a Turkish earthquake 1992 Martina Navratilova & Judy Nelson settle their galamony suit 1993 Visitor posting - Lauren Hermsen born - USA 1993 Blizzard of '93 hits north-east US 1994 33.3% of Austria votes for ultra-right FPÖ 1994 Cuba Godding Jr (26) weds Sara Kapfer (26) 1994 Oil tank/airship crash at Bosporus (huge fire/15+ killed) 1994 President Mangope of Bophuthaswana deposed 1995 9th Soul Train Music Awards: Boyz II Men, Anita Baker win 1995 Anti fascist Kazakhstan anti-parliament forms 1995 Hungarian Forint devalued 9% 1995 Istanbul police shoot dead 16 Alawitische demonstrators 1996 At Dunblane, a thirteenth century village on the edge of the Scottish Highlands, forty-three-year-old Thomas Hamilton bursts into the gymnasium of the Dunblane Primary School with four guns, and opens fire on a kindergarten class. Sixteen children and their teacher, Gwenne Mayor, are killed before Hamilton turns the gun on himself 1996 Sri Lanka beat India in World Cup semi as riots stop play 1996 The Dunblane Massacre: in Dunblane, Scotland, 16 children and 1 adult teacher are shot dead by a spree killer who then commits suicide. 1997 India's Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader. 1997 The Phoenix lights were seen over Phoenix, Arizona, & were seen by hundreds of people, & millions on television. And are now, hotly debated in controversy. 2003 Human evolution: The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old upright-walking human footprints have been found in Italy. 2007 Visitor posting - "Doc" Jones and 5 other soldiers in Iraq exposed to chemical weapons 2007 The Bank of England launched a new 20, featuring the Scottish economist Adam Smith. It was the first note in the new Series F banknotes More historical events added daily - keep checking back Add your own Personal Historic listing FREE! - Click Here Return to Daily Calendar Contact us at: info @ datesinhistory.com (remove the spaces) "This site contains links to other Internet sites. These links are not endorsements of any products or services in such sites, and no information in such site has been endorsed or approved by this site. We are not responsible for the content of external sites. We do not vouch for accuracy of the dates listed on this site." Privacy Policy . What happened on my birthday? Search other websites with Google If you added a Personal Historic listing - Find it on Google Get a HOUSE for $23,000 ?? Search for "Real Estate" in Las Vegas, Az, Detroit Enter your search terms Submit search form Need financing for that $23,000 House? Search for "Home Financing"