May
13
Events
May
13
1373 – Julian
of Norwich has visions which are later transcribed in her Revelations
of Divine Love.
1497 – Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola.
1515 – Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Charles Brandon, 1st
Duke of Suffolk are officially married at Greenwich.
1568 – Battle of Langside: the forces of Mary, Queen of Scots,
are defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under
James Stewart, Earl of Moray, her half-brother.
1619 – Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt is executed
in The Hague after being convicted of treason.
1648 – Construction of the Red Fort at Delhi is completed.
1779 – War of Bavarian Succession: Russian and French mediators
at the Congress of Teschen negotiate an end to the war. In the
agreement Austria receives the part of its territory that was
taken from it (the Innviertel).
1780 – The Cumberland Compact is signed by leaders of the settlers
in early Tennessee.
1787 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England, with
eleven ships full of convicts (the "First Fleet")
to establish a penal colony in Australia.
1804 – Forces sent by Yusuf Karamanli of Tripoli to retake Derna
from the Americans attack the city.
1830 – Ecuador gains its independence from Gran Colombia.
1846 – Mexican-American War: The United States declares war
on Mexico.
1848 – First performance of Finland's national anthem.
1861 – American Civil War: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes
the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.
1861 – The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt
of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia.
1861 – Pakistan’s (then a part of British India) first railway
line opens, from Karachi to Kotri.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Resaca – the battle begins
with Union General Sherman fighting toward Atlanta, Georgia.
1865 – American Civil War: Battle of Palmito Ranch – in far
south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Robert
E. Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the Civil War ends
with a Confederate victory.
1880 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the
first test of his electric railway.
1888 – With the passage of the Lei Áurea ("Golden Law"),
Brazil abolishes slavery.
1909 – The first Giro d'Italia starts from Milan. Italian cyclist
Luigi Ganna will be the winner.
1912 – The Royal Flying Corps (now the Royal Air Force) is established
in the United Kingdom.
1917 – Three children report the first apparition of Our Lady
of Fátima in Fátima, Portugal.
1923 – Robert Bellarmine, a Doctor of the Catholic Church, is
beatified.
1939 – The first commercial FM radio station in the United States
is launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The station later becomes
WDRC-FM.
1940 – World War II: Germany's conquest of France begins as
the German army crosses the Meuse. Winston Churchill makes his
"blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech to the House
of Commons.
1940 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands flees her country
to Great Britain after the Nazi invasion. Princess Juliana takes
her children to Canada for their safety.
1941 – World War II: Yugoslav royal colonel Dragoljub Mihailović
starts fighting with German occupation troops, beginning the
Serbian resistance.
1943 – World War II: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops
in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.
1948 – 1948 Arab-Israeli War: the Kfar Etzion massacre is committed
by Arab irregulars, the day before the declaration of independence
of the state of Israel on May 14.
1950 – The first round of the Formula One World Championship
is held at Silverstone.
1951 – The 400th anniversary of the founding of the National
University of San Marcos is commemorated by the opening of the
first large-capacity stadium in Peru.
1952 – The Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of
India, holds its first sitting.
1954 – The anti-National Service Riots, by Chinese Middle School
students in Singapore, take place.
1958 – During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President
Richard Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
1958 – The trade mark Velcro is registered.
1958 – May 1958 crisis: a group of French military officers
lead a coup in Algiers demanding that a government of national
unity be formed with Charles de Gaulle at its head in order
to defend French control of Algeria.
1960 – Hundreds of University of California, Berkeley students
congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the
House Committee on Un-American Activities. Thirty-one students
are arrested, and the Free Speech Movement is born.
1963 – The U.S. Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland is decided.
1967 – Dr. Zakir Hussain becomes the third President of India.
He is the first Muslim President of the Indian Union. He holds
this position until August 24, 1969.
1969 – Race riots, later known as the May 13 Incident, take
place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
1972 – Faulty electrical wiring ignites a fire underneath the
Playtown Cabaret in Osaka, Japan. Blocked exits and non-functional
elevators lead to 118 fatalities, with many victims leaping
to their deaths.
1972 – The Troubles: a car bombing outside a crowded pub in
Belfast sparks a two-day gun battle involving the Provisional
IRA, Ulster Volunteer Force and British Army. Seven people are
killed and over 66 injured.
1980 – An F3 tornado hits Kalamazoo County, Michigan. President
Jimmy Carter declares it a federal disaster area.
1981 – Mehmet Ali Ağca attempts to assassinate Pope John Paul
II in St. Peter's Square in Rome. The Pope is rushed to the
Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic to undergo emergency
surgery and survives.
1985 – Police storm MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia to end
a stand-off, killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes
of 250 city residents.
1989 – Large groups of students occupy Tiananmen Square and
begin a hunger strike.
1992 – Li Hongzhi gives the first public lecture on Falun Gong
in Changchun, People's Republic of China.
1994 – Johnny Carson makes his last television appearance on
Late Show with David Letterman.
1995 – 33-year-old British mother Alison Hargreaves became the
first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of
sherpas.
1996 – Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kill
600 people.
1998 – Race riots break out in Jakarta, Indonesia, where shops
owned by Indonesians of Chinese descent are looted and women
raped.
1998 – India carries out two nuclear tests at Pokhran, following
the three conducted on May 11. The United States and Japan impose
economic sanctions on India.
2000 – In Enschede, the Netherlands, a fireworks factory explodes,
killing 22 people, wounding 950, and resulting in approximately
€450 million in damage.
2005 – The Andijan Massacre occurs in Uzbekistan.
2005 – The Binh Bridge opens to traffic in Hai Phong, Vietnam.
2006 – 2006 São Paulo violence: a major rebellion occurs in
several prisons in Brazil.
2008 – The Jaipur bombings in Rajasthan, India results in dozens
of deaths.
2011 – In the 2011 Charsadda bombing in the Charsadda District
of Pakistan, two bombs explode, resulting in 98 deaths 140 wounded.
Holidays
and observances Abbotsbury
Garland Day (Dorset, England)
Christian Feast Day:
Gerard of Villamagna
Glyceria
John the Silent (Roman Catholic)
Julian of Norwich (Roman Catholic)
Our Lady of Fatima
Servatius
May 13 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
One of the three feast days of the Lemuralia, observed in ancient
Rome
Rotuma Day (Fiji)
For details, contact Datacentre
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