What Happened on March 13th in History
30 historical events on this date
The German revolutions of 1848â1849 begin in Vienna.
The German revolutions of 1848â1849, the opening phase of which was also called the March Revolution, were initially part of the Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many European countries. They...
The Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves is passed by the United States Congress, effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves is a law passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War forbidding all officers or persons in the Union military or naval service to...
The Siege of Khartoum begins. It lasts until January 26, 1885.
The siege of Khartoum took place from 13 March 1884 to 26 January 1885. Sudanese Mahdist forces captured the city of Khartoum, Sudan, from its Egyptian garrison, thereby gaining control over the...
The eruption of Ritter Island triggers tsunamis that kill up to 3,000 people on nearby islands.
On the morning of 13 March 1888, a section of Ritter Island, a small volcanic island off the coast of New Guinea, collapsed into the sea in a sector collapse. Prior to its collapse, Ritter Island...
British forces occupy Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, during the Second Boer War.
Bloemfontein, also known as Bloem, is the capital and the largest city of the Free State province in South Africa. It is often, and has been traditionally, referred to as the country's "judicial...
The Kapp Putsch briefly ousts the Weimar Republic government from Berlin.
The Kapp Putsch, also known as the KappâLĂŒttwitz Putsch, was an abortive coup d'Ă©tat against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and...
The news of the discovery of Pluto is announced by Lowell Observatory.
Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest...
The Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union officially ends after the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty.
The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a...
The Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in KrakĂłw.
The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million...
The Battle of Äiá»n BiĂȘn Phủ begins with an artillery barrage by Viet Minh forces under VĂ” NguyĂȘn GiĂĄp; Viet Minh victory led to the end of the First Indochina War and French withdrawal from Vietnam.
The Battle of Äiá»n BiĂȘn Phủ was a defeat of the French Union forces by the Viet Minh forces in the First Indochina War. It took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954.
Cuban student revolutionaries storm the presidential palace in Havana in a failed attempt on the life of President Fulgencio Batista.
Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country in the Caribbean. It comprises the eponymous main island as well as 4,195 islands, islets, and cays. Situated at the convergence of the...
Kitty Genovese is murdered in New York City, prompting research into the bystander effect due to the false story that neighbors witnessed the killing and did nothing to help her.
Kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old bartender, was raped and stabbed to death on March 13, 1964, outside the apartment building where she lived in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of the Queens borough of New...
Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.
Apollo 9 was the third human spaceflight in NASA's Apollo program, which successfully tested systems and procedures critical to landing on the Moon. The three-man crew consisted of Commander James...
Sierra Pacific Airlines Flight 802 crashes into the White Mountains near Bishop, California, killing 36.
Sierra Pacific Airlines Flight 802 was a charter flight from Bishop, California to Burbank, California that crashed into the White Mountains on the evening of March 13, 1974. The aircraft, carrying...
The New Jewel Movement, headed by Maurice Bishop, ousts the Prime Minister of Grenada, Eric Gairy, in a coup d'Ă©tat.
The New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation, or New JEWEL Movement (NJM), was a MarxistâLeninist vanguard party in the Caribbean island nation of Grenada that was led by Maurice...
The Seikan Tunnel, the longest tunnel in the world with an undersea segment, opens between Aomori and Hakodate, Japan.
The Seikan Tunnel is a 53.85-kilometre (33.5-mile) dual-gauge railway tunnel in Japan, with a 23.3-kilometre (14.5-mile) segment running beneath the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates...
Space Shuttle Discovery launches on STS-29 carrying the TDRS-4 satellite.
Space Shuttle Discovery is a retired American Space Shuttle orbiter. The spaceplane was one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be...
The Mw⯠6.6 Erzincan earthquake strikes eastern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe).
An earthquake struck eastern Turkey near the city of Erzincan at 20:18:39 local time on 13 March 1992. The second major earthquake to hit Erzincan in half a century, it measured 6.6â6.7 on the...
The 1993 Storm of the Century affects the eastern United States, dropping feet of snow in many areas.
The 1993 Storm of the Century was a devastating cyclonic storm, or nor'easter, that formed over the Gulf of Mexico on March 12, 1993. The cold weather, heavy snowfall, high winds and storm surge...
The Dunblane massacre leads to the death of sixteen primary school children and one teacher in Dunblane, Scotland.
The Dunblane massacre was a school shooting that took place at Dunblane Primary School in Dunblane, near Stirling, Scotland, on 13Â March 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton killed 16 pupils and...
The Missionaries of Charity choose Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as their leader.
The Missionaries of Charity is a Catholic centralised religious institute of consecrated life of pontifical right for women established in 1950 by Mother Teresa. As of 2023, it consisted of 5,750...
An article in Nature identifies the Ciampate del Diavolo as 350,000-year-old hominid footprints.
Nature is a British weekly international scientific journal publishing peer-reviewed research across the natural sciences, including biology, physics, chemistry, the earth sciences, and related...
The Sierre coach crash kills 28 people, including 22 children.
The Sierre bus crash occurred on 13 March 2012 near Sierre, Switzerland, when a coach carrying school teachers and pupils crashed into a wall in the Sierre Tunnel. Of the 52 people on board, 28 were...
The 2013 papal conclave elects Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio taking the name Pope Francis as the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church.
A conclave was held on 12 and 13 March 2013 to elect a new pope to succeed Benedict XVI, who had resigned on 28 February 2013. Of the 117 eligible cardinal electors, all but two attended. On the...
Serbian Army Mi-17 helicopter crashes near Belgrade airport while transporting a 5-day-old baby with respiratory problems to hospital, killing all 7 on board.
On 13 March 2015, a Serbian Army Mil Mi-17 helicopter crashed just short of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport while transporting a five-day-old baby with respiratory problems to a nearby hospital. All...
The Ankara bombing kills at least 37 people.
The March 2016 Ankara bombing killed at least 37 people and injured 125. Of the 125 individuals who suffered injuries, 19 were seriously harmed. Several buildings were also damaged during the event,...
Three gunmen attack two hotels in the Ivory Coast town of Grand-Bassam, killing at least 19 people.
On 13 March 2016, three Islamist gunmen opened fire at a beach resort in Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast, killing at least 19 people and injuring 33 others.
President Donald Trump declares the COVID-19 pandemic to be a national emergency in the United States.
Donald John Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from...
Breonna Taylor is killed by police officers who were forcibly entering her home in Louisville, Kentucky; her death sparked extensive protests against racism and police brutality.
Breonna Taylor was an African-American woman who was shot and killed while unarmed in her Louisville, Kentucky, home by three police officers who entered under the auspices of a "no-knock" search...
Katerina Sakellaropoulou is sworn in as the first female President of Greece amid strict COVID-19 measures.
Katerina N. Sakellaropoulou is a Greek retired judge who served as the president of Greece from 2020 to 2025. She was elected by the Hellenic Parliament to succeed Prokopis Pavlopoulos on 22 January...