Historical Events on this Day in History

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 Derne 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 Railways opens the country's first railways line, 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.
• 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.
• 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, 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.