13 September

585 BC – Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victories over the Sabines, and the surrender of Collatia.
509 BC – The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Rome's Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the ides of September.
122 – Construction of Hadrian's Wall begins.
335 – Emperor Constantine the Great consecrated the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
533 – General Belisarius of the Byzantine Empire defeats Gelimer and the Vandals at the Battle of Ad Decimium, near Carthage, North Africa.
1213 – End of Battle of Muret, during the Albigensian Crusade to destroy the Cathar heresy.
1229 – Ögedei Khan is proclaimed Khagan of the Mongol Empire in Kodoe Aral, Khentii: Mongolia.
1501 – Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David.
1504 – Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand issue a Royal Warrant for the construction of a Royal Chapel (Capilla Real) to be built.
1541 – After three years of exile, John Calvin returns to Geneva to reform the church under a body of doctrine known as Calvinism.
1584 – San Lorenzo del Escorial Palace in Madrid is finished.
1609 – Henry Hudson reaches the river that would later be named after him – the Hudson River.
1743 – Great Britain, Austria and Savoy-Sardinia sign the Treaty of Worms.
1759 – Battle of the Plains of Abraham: British defeat French near Quebec City in the Seven Years' War, known in the United States as the French and Indian War.
1782 – American Revolutionary War: Franco-Spanish troops launch the unsuccessful "grand assault" during the Great Siege of Gibraltar.
1788 – The Philadelphia Convention sets the date for the first presidential election in the United States, and New York City becomes the country's temporary capital.
1791 – King Louis XVI of France accepts the new constitution.
1808 – Finnish War: In the Battle of Jutas, Swedish forces under Lieutenant General Georg Carl von Döbeln beat the Russians, making von Döbeln a Swedish war hero.
1812 – War of 1812: A supply wagon sent to relieve Fort Harrison is ambushed in the Attack at the Narrows.
1814 – In a turning point in the War of 1812, the British fail to capture Baltimore, Maryland.
1843 – The Greek Army rebels (OS date: September 3) against the autocratic rule of king Otto of Greece, demanding the granting of a constitution.
1847 – Mexican-American War: Six teenage military cadets known as Niños Héroes die defending Chapultepec Castle in the Battle of Chapultepec. American troops under General Winfield Scott capture Mexico City in the Mexican-American War.
1848 – Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage survives a 3-foot (0.91 m)-plus iron rod being driven through his head; the reported effects on his behavior and personality stimulate thinking about the nature of the brain and its functions.
1850 – First ascent of Piz Bernina, the highest summit of the eastern Alps.
1862 – American Civil War: Union soldiers find a copy of Robert E. Lee's battle plans in a field outside Frederick, Maryland. It is the prelude to the Battle of Antietam.
1882 – The Battle of Tel el-Kebir is fought in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War.
1898 – Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
1899 – Henry Bliss is the first person in the United States to be killed in an automobile accident.
1899 – Mackinder, Ollier and Brocherel make the first ascent of Batian (5,199 m – 17,058 ft), the highest peak of Mount Kenya.
1900 – Filipino resistance fighters defeat a small American column in the Battle of Pulang Lupa, during the Philippine-American War.
1906 – First flight of a fixed-wing aircraft in Europe.
1914 – World War I: South African troops open hostilities in German south-west Africa (Namibia) with an assault on the Ramansdrift police station.
1914 – World War I: The Battle of Aisne begins between Germany and France.
1922 – The temperature at 'Aziziya, Libya reaches a world record 57.8 °C (136.0 °F).
1922 – The final act of the Greco-Turkish War, the Great Fire of Smyrna, commences.
1923 – Following a military coup in Spain, Miguel Primo de Rivera takes over, setting up a dictatorship.
1933 – Elizabeth McCombs becomes the first woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament.
1935 – Rockslide near Whirlpool Rapids Bridge ends the International Railway (New York – Ontario).
1942 – World War II: Second day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge in the Guadalcanal campaign. U.S. Marines successfully defeated attacks by the Imperial Japanese Army with heavy losses for the Japanese forces.
1943 – The Municipal Theatre of Corfu is destroyed during an aerial bombardment by Luftwaffe.
1948 – Deputy Primer Minister of India Vallabhbhai Patel ordered the Army to move into the Hyderabad to integrate it with Indian Union.
1948 – Margaret Chase Smith is elected senator, and becomes the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate.
1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is appointed secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1956 – The dike around the Dutch polder East Flevoland is closed.
1956 – IBM introduces the first computer disk storage unit, the RAMAC 305.
1964 – South Vietnamese Generals Lam Van Phat and Duong Van Duc fail in a coup attempt against General Nguyen Khanh.
1968 – Albania leaves the Warsaw Pact.
1971 – State police and National Guardsmen storm New York's Attica Prison to end a prison revolt.
1971 – People's Republic of China: Chairman Mao Zedong's second in command and successor Marshal Lin Biao flees the country via plane after the failure of alleged coup against Mao. The plane crashes in Mongolia, killing all aboard.
1979 – South Africa grants independence to the "homeland" of Venda (not recognised outside South Africa).
1986 – Kamui Kobayashi is born.
1987 – Goiânia accident: A radioactive object is stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating many people in the following weeks and causing some to die from radiation poisoning.
1988 – Hurricane Gilbert is the strongest recorded hurricane in the Western Hemisphere, later replaced by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 (based on barometric pressure).
1989 – Largest anti-Apartheid march in South Africa, led by Desmond Tutu.
1993 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shakes hands with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat at the White House after signing the Oslo Accords granting limited Palestinian autonomy.
1994 – Ulysses probe passes the Sun's south pole.
2001 – Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the U.S. after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
2007 – The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
2008 – Delhi, India, is hit by a series of bomb blasts, resulting in 30 deaths and 130 injuries.
2008 – Hurricane Ike makes landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast of the United States, causing heavy damage to Galveston Island, Houston and surrounding areas.

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:
Aimé
Ame
John Chrysostom
September 13 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics).
Día de los Niños Héroes (Mexico)
Epulum Jovis, celebrated on the Ides of September, during the Ludi Romani. (Roman Empire)
National Celiac Disease Awareness Day (United States)
Programmers' Day, during a non-leap year. (Russia and programmers around the world)