March 13

March 13 is the 72nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (73rd in leap years). There are 293 days remaining.

Events

• 483 - St. Felix becomes Pope.
• 874 - The bones of Saint Nicephorus are interred in the Church of the Apostles, Constantinople.
• 1138 - Cardinal Gregory is elected anti-pope as Victor IV, succeeding Anacletus II.
• 1639 - Harvard College was named for clergyman John Harvard.
• 1781 - William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus.
• 1862 - American Civil War:the US federal government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.
• 1865 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America reluctantly agrees to the use of African American troops.
• 1881 - Alexander II of Russia is killed near his palace when a bomb is thrown at him. (Gregorian date: it was 1 March in the Julian calendar then in use in Russia.)
• 1884 - The siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins (ends on January 26, 1885).
• 1900 - Boer Wars: British forces occupy Bloemfontein, Orange Free State.
• 1900 - In France, length of a workday for women and children is limited to 11 hours by law
• 1921 - Mongolia, under Black Baron, declares its independence from China.
• 1925 - Scopes Trial: A law in Tennessee prohibits the teaching of evolution.
• 1933 - Great Depression: Banks in the United States begin to re-open after the Presidentially mandated "bank holiday".
• 1940 - Winter War ended.
• 1943 - World War II: In Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700.
• 1943 - Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.
• 1954 - Battle of Dien Bien Phu: Viet Minh forces attack the French.
• 1957 - The FBI arrests Jimmy Hoffa and charges him with bribery.
• 1964 - A young woman, Kitty Genovese is murdered in front of multiple witnesses who all fail to help her, in an incident which shocks the world and prompts investigation into the Bystander effect.
• 1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.
• 1971 - In New York City, Rock group The Allman Brothers Band record a concert that will be released as their classic live album At Fillmore East
• 1979 - The New Jewel Movement, headed by Maurice Bishop, ousts Prime Minister Eric Gairy in a nearly bloodless coup d'etat in Grenada.
• 1991 - The United States Justice Department announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
• 1992 - In eastern Turkey, an earthquake registering 6.8 on the Richter scale kills over 500.
• 1993 - The Great Blizzard of 1993 strikes the eastern U.S., bringing record snowfall and other severe weather all the way from Cuba to Québec.
• 1996 - The Dunblane Massacre: in Dunblane, Scotland, 16 children and 1 adult teacher are shot dead by a spree killer who then commits suicide.
• 1997 - India's Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader.
• 2003 - Human evolution: The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old upright-walking human footprints have been found in Italy.

Births

• 2 - Apollonius of Tyana
• 1372 - Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans, brother of Charles VI of France (d. 1407)
• 1615 - Pope Innocent XII (d. 1700)
• 1733 - Joseph Priestley, English scientist and minister (d. 1804)
• 1741 - Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1790)
• 1763 - Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, French soldier (d. 1815)
• 1764 - Earl Grey, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1845)
• 1781 - Karl Friedrich Schinkel, German architect (d. 1841)
• 1784 - Jean Moufot, French philosopher and mathematician (d. 1842)
• 1798 - Abigail Fillmore, First Lady of the United States (d. 1853)
• 1815 - James Curtis Hepburn, American missionary and linguist (d. 1911)
• 1855 - Percival Lowell, American astronomer (d. 1916)
• 1860 - Hugo Wolf, Austrian composer (d. 1903)
• 1864 - Alexej von Jawlensky, Russian painter (d. 1941)
• 1884 - Sir Hugh Walpole, English novelist (d. 1941)
• 1899 - John Hasbrouck van Vleck, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1980)
• 1900 - George Seferis, Turkish-born poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
• 1908 - Walter Annenberg, American publisher and philanthropist (d. 2002)
• 1910 - Karl Gustav Ahlefeldt, Danish actor (d. 1985)
• 1910 - Sammy Kaye, American musician (d. 1987)
• 1911 - L. Ron Hubbard, American author (d. 1986)
• 1913 - William Casey, American director of the Central Intelligence Agency (d. 1987)
• 1914 - Edward O'Hare, American pilot (d. 1943)
• 1921 - Al Jaffee, American cartoonist
• 1926 - Raúl Alfonsín, President of Argentina
• 1926 - Carlos Roberto Reina, President of Honduras (d. 2003)
• 1929 - Peter Breck, American actor
• 1934 - Barry Hughart, American author
• 1935 - Michael Walzer, American philosopher
• 1935 - Leslie Parrish, American actress
• 1938 - Erma Franklin, American singer (d. 2002)
• 1939 - Neil Sedaka, American singer and songwriter
• 1942 - Dave Cutler, American software engineer
• 1942 - Scatman John, American singer (d. 1999)
• 1945 - Michael Martin Murphey, American musician
• 1946 - Jonathan Netanyahu, Israeli soldier (d. 1976)
• 1947 - Beat Richner, Swiss physician and cellist
• 1949 - Julia Migenes, American soprano
• 1950 - William H. Macy, American actor
• 1951 - Fred Berry, American actor and dancer (d. 2003)
• 1952 - Wolfgang Rihm, German composer
• 1954 - The Baroness Amos, British politician
• 1956 - Dana Delany, American actress
• 1960 - Adam Clayton, Irish bassist (U2)
• 1967 - Andrés Escobar, Colombian footballer (d. 1994)
• 1971 - Annabeth Gish, American actress
• 1971 - Robert Lanham, American author and satirist
• 1973 - David Draiman, American musician and songwriter
• 1974 - Cillian Murphy, Irish actor
• 1976 - Danny Masterson, American actor
• 1979 - Johan Santana, Venezuelan baseball player
• 1985 - Emile Hirsch, American Actor
• 1986 - Natalie and Nicole Albino, American musicians (Nina Sky)

Deaths

• 1569 - Louis I de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, French Huguenot general (b. 1530)
• 1604 - Arnaud d'Ossat, French diplomat and writer (b. 1537)
• 1619 - Richard Burbage, English actor (b. 1567)
• 1711 - Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, French poet and critic (b. 1636)
• 1808 - King Christian VII of Denmark (b. 1749)
• 1918 - César Cui, Lithuanian composer (b. 1835)
• 1842 - Henry Shrapnel, soldier and inventor (b. 1761)
• 1879 - Adolf Anderssen, German chess player (b. 1818)
• 1881 - Tsar Alexander II of Russia (b. 1818)
• 1884 - Leland Stanford, Jr., American railroad magnate (b. 1868)
• 1901 - Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (b. 1833)
• 1906 - Susan B. Anthony, American women's suffrage activist (b. 1820)
• 1938 - Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Russian politician and intellectual (b. 1888)
• 1938 - Clarence Darrow, American attorney (b. 1857)
• 1943 - Stephen Vincent Benét, American author (b. 1898)
• 1955 - King Tribhuvan of Nepal (b. 1906)
• 1965 - Corrado Gini, Italian statistician (b. 1884)
• 1965 - Fan S. Noli, Albanian bishop, poet, and politician (b. 1882)
• 1972 - Tony Ray-Jones, British photographer (b. 1941)
• 1975 - Ivo Andrić, Croatian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1892)
• 1990 - Bruno Bettelheim, American psychiatrist (b. 1903)
• 1991 - Karl Münchinger, German conductor (b. 1915)
• 1995 - Leon Day, baseball player (b. 1916)
• 1996 - Krzysztof Kieślowski, Polish film director (b. 1941)
• 1998 - Bill Reid, Canadian artist (b. 1920)
• 1998 - Hans von Ohain, German engineer (b. 1911)
• 1999 - Garson Kanin, American writer and director (b. 1912)
• 2002 - Hans-Georg Gadamer, German philosopher (b. 1900)
• 2004 - Franz König, Austrian Catholic Archbishop of Vienna (b. 1905)

Holidays and observances

• Roman Catholic Church and Greek Orthodox Church - Feast day of Saint Nicephorus

External links

• BBC: On This Day
• Today in History: March 13

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