June 13

Events June 13

313 – The Edict of Milan, signed by Constantine the Great and co-emperor Valerius Licinius granting religious freedom throughout the Roman Empire, is posted in Nicomedia.
1249 – Coronation of Alexander III as King of Scots.
1373 – Anglo-Portuguese Alliance between England (succeeded by the United Kingdom) and Portugal is the oldest alliance in the world which is still in force.
1525 – Martin Luther marries Katharina von Bora, against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church for priests and nuns.
1625 – King Charles I marries Henrietta Maria of France, Princess of France
1774 – Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: Marquis de Lafayette lands near Charleston, South Carolina, in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army.
1805 – Lewis and Clark Expedition: scouting ahead of the expedition, Meriwether Lewis and four companions sight the Great Falls of the Missouri River.
1881 – The USS Jeannette is crushed in an Arctic Ocean ice pack.
1886 – A fire devastates much of Vancouver, British Columbia.
1886 – King Ludwig II of Bavaria is found dead in Lake Starnberg south of Munich at 11:30 PM.
1893 – Grover Cleveland undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw; operation not revealed to US public until 1917, nine years after the president's death.
1898 – Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital.
1910 – The University of the Philippines College of Engineering is established. This unit of the university is said to be the largest degree granting unit in the Philippines.
1917 – World War I: the deadliest German air raid on London during World War I is carried out by Gotha G bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children, and 432 injuries.
1927 – Aviator Charles Lindbergh receives a ticker-tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York City.
1934 – Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet in Venice, Italy; Mussolini later describes the German dictator as "a silly little monkey".
1944 – World War II: German combat elements - reinforced by the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division - launch a counterattack on American forces near Carentan.
1944 – World War II: Germany launches a V1 Flying Bomb attack on England. Only four of the eleven bombs actually hit their targets.
1952 – Catalina affair: a Swedish Douglas DC-3 is shot down by a Soviet MiG-15 fighter.
1955 – Mir Mine, the first diamond mine in the USSR, is discovered.
1966 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.
1967 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson nominates Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
1969 – Governor of Texas Preston Smith signs a bill into law converting the former Southwest Center for Advanced Studies, originally founded as a research arm of Texas Instruments, into the University of Texas at Dallas.
1970 – "The Long and Winding Road" becomes the Beatles' last Number 1 song.
1971 – Vietnam War: The New York Times begins publication of the Pentagon Papers.
1977 – Convicted Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray is recaptured after escaping from prison three days before.
1978 – Israeli Defense Forces withdraw from Lebanon.
1981 – At the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London, a teenager, Marcus Sarjeant, fires six blank shots at Queen Elizabeth II.
1982 – Fahd becomes King of Saudi Arabia upon the death of his brother, Khalid.
1983 – Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passes beyond the orbit of Neptune (the furthest planet from the Sun at the time).
1994 – A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, blames recklessness by Exxon and Captain Joseph Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of the oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages.
1996 – The Montana Freemen surrender after an 81-day standoff with FBI agents.
1997 – A jury sentences Timothy McVeigh to death for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
1997 – Uphaar cinema fire, in New Delhi, India, killed 59 people, and over 100 people injured.
2000 – President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea meets Kim Jong-il, leader of North Korea, for the beginning of the first ever inter-Korea summit, in the northern capital of Pyongyang.
2000 – Italy pardons Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981.
2002 – The United States withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
2002 – Two 14-year-old South Korean girls are struck and killed by a United States Army armored vehicle, leading to months of public protests against the US.
2005 – A jury in Santa Maria, California acquits pop singer Michael Jackson of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch.
2007 – The Al Askari Mosque is bombed for a second time.
2010 – A capsule of the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa, containing particles of the asteroid 25143 Itokawa, returns to Earth.

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:
Anthony of Padua, Doctor of the Church
Blessed Thomas Woodhouse
Cetteus
Pope Leo III
June 13 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Quinquatrus Minusculae, in honor of Minerva. (Roman Empire)

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