December
13
Events
1294 – Saint
Celestine V resigns the papacy after only five months; Celestine
hoped to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit.
1545 – Council of Trent begins.
1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, England, on
his round-the-world voyage.
1636 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia
regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This
organization is recognized today as the founding of the United
States National Guard.
1642 – Abel Janszoon Tasman reaches New Zealand.
1643 – English Civil War: The Battle of Alton takes place in
Hampshire.
1769 – Dartmouth College is founded by the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock,
with a Royal Charter from King George III, on land donated by
Royal Governor John Wentworth.
1809 – Dr. Ephraim McDowell performed the first ovariotomy,
removing a 22 pound tumor.
1862 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Fredericksburg,
Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeats the Union Major General
Ambrose E. Burnside.
1867 – Fenian bomb explodes in Clerkenwell, London, killing
six.
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanjing – Nanjing,
defended by the National Revolutionary Army under the command
of General Tang Shengzhi, falls to the Japanese.
1937 – Nanjing Massacre. Japanese troops begin carrying out
several weeks of raping and killing of civilians and suspected
Chinese resistance after the fall of Nanjing.
1938 – The Holocaust: The Neuengamme concentration camp opens
in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, Germany.
1939 – World War II: Battle of the River Plate – Captain Hans
Langsdorff of the German Deutschland class cruiser (pocket battleship)
Admiral Graf Spee engages with Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter,
HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles.
1941 – World War II: Hungary and Romania declare war on the
United States.
1943 – World War II: The Massacre of Kalavryta by German occupying
forces in Greece.
1949 – The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.
1959 – Archbishop Makarios becomes the first President of Cyprus.
1960 – While Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia visits Brazil,
his Imperial Bodyguard seizes the capital and proclaim him deposed
and his son, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, Emperor.
1962 – NASA Relay 1 launch, first active repeater communications
satellite in orbit.
1967 – Constantine II of Greece attempts an unsuccessful counter-coup
against the Regime of the Colonels
1968 – Brazilian president Artur da Costa e Silva decrees the
AI-5 (or the fifth Institutional Act), which lasts until 1978
and marks the beginning of the hard times of Brazilian military
dictatorship.
1972 – Apollo program: Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin
the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or "Moonwalk"
of Apollo 17. To date they are the last humans to set foot on
the Moon.
1974 – Malta becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations
1977 – A DC-3 aircraft chartered from the Indianapolis-based
National Jet crashes near Evansville Regional Airport, killing
29, including the University of Evansville basketball team,
support staff and boosters of the team.
1979 – The Canadian Government of Prime Minister Joe Clark is
defeated in the House of Commons, prompting the 1980 Canadian
election.
1981 – General Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland
to prevent dismantling of the communist system by Solidarity.
1988 – Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat gives a speech at the
United Nations General Assembly in the Swiss city of Geneva
after the United States authorities refused to give him a visa
to enter New York.
1989 – Attack on Derryard checkpoint: The Provisional Irish
Republican Army launch an attack on a British Army nonpermanent
vehicle checkpoint near Rosslea, Northern Ireland. Two British
soldiers are killed and one badly wounded.
2000 – The "Texas 7" escape from the John Connally
Unit near Kenedy, Texas and go on a robbery spree, during which
police officer Aubrey Hawkins is shot and killed.
2000 – Al Gore concedes the U.S. presidential election to George
W. Bush.
2001 – The Indian Parliament Sansad is attacked by terrorists.
15 people are killed, including all the terrorists.
2002 – Enlargement of the European Union: The European Union
announces that Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia will
become members from May 1, 2004.
2003 – Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near
his home town of Tikrit (see Operation Red Dawn).
Holidays
and observances
Acadian
Remembrance Day (Acadians)
Christian Feast Day:
Lucy
Odile of Alsace
Republic Day (Malta)
Saint Lucy's Day (mainly Scandinavia, some regions of Italy
(for example, Sicily, Veneto and Trentino), and Malta), and
its related observances:
National Day, celebrates the independence of Saint Lucia from
United Kingdom in 1979.
Tellus was worshipped in the district Carinae at the Esquiline
Hill, and a lectisternium or table was spread for Ceres. (Roman
Empire)
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