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)
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