What Happened on May 13th in History
30 historical events on this date
The inaugural Formula One World Championship race takes place at Silverstone Circuit. The race was won by Giuseppe Farina, who would go on to become the inaugural champion that year.
The 1950 British Grand Prix, formally known as The Royal Automobile Club Grand Prix d'Europe Incorporating The British Grand Prix, was a Formula One motor race held on 13 May 1950 at the Silverstone...
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.
The National University of San Marcos is a public research university located in Lima, the capital of Peru. In the Americas, it is the first officially established and the oldest continuously...
The Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India, holds its first sitting.
The Rajya Sabha, also known as Council of States, is the upper house of the Parliament of India, of which the Lok Sabha is the lower house. The Rajya Sabha represents India's federal units – the...
The anti-National Service Riots, by Chinese middle school students in Singapore, take place.
In December 1953, the British colonial government in Singapore passed the National Service Ordinance, requiring all male British subjects and Federal citizens between the ages of 18–20 to register...
During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, the US Vice President Richard Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
Caracas, officially Santiago de León de Caracas (CCS), is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas. Caracas is located along the Guaire River...
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.
The May 1958 crisis, also known as the Algiers putsch or the coup of 13 May, was a political crisis in France during the turmoil of the Algerian War (1954–1962) which led to the collapse of the...
Ben Carlin becomes the first (and only) person to circumnavigate the world by amphibious vehicle, having travelled over 17,000 kilometres (11,000 mi) by sea and 62,000 kilometres (39,000 mi) by land during a ten-year journey.
Frederick Benjamin Carlin was an Australian adventurer who was the first person to circumnavigate the world in an amphibious vehicle. Born in Northam, Western Australia, Carlin attended Guildford...
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.
The University of California, Berkeley is a public land-grant research university in the Southside and Northside neighborhoods of Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after...
Dr. Zakir Husain becomes the third President of India. He is the first Muslim President of the Indian Union. He holds this position until August 24, 1969.
Zakir Husain Khan was an Indian educationist and politician who served as the vice president of India from 1962 to 1967 and president of India from 13 May 1967 until his death on 3 May 1969.
In the aftermath of the 1969 Malaysian general election, Sino-Malay sectarian violence erupts in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
General elections were held in Malaysia on Saturday, 10 May 1969, although polling in Sabah and Sarawak was postponed until between 6 June and 4 July 1970. This was the first parliamentary election...
A fire occurs in the Sennichi Department Store in Osaka, Japan. Blocked exits and non-functional elevators result in 118 fatalities (many victims leaping to their deaths).
The Sennichi Department Store Building fire occurred in Sennichimae, Minami-ku, Osaka, Japan on May 13, 1972. The fire killed at least 118 people and injured another 78. It was the deadliest...
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.
The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began...
An F3 tornado hits Kalamazoo County, Michigan. President Jimmy Carter declares it a federal disaster area.
The Fujita scale, or Fujita–Pearson scale, is a retired scale for rating tornado intensity, based primarily on the damage tornadoes inflict on human-built structures and vegetation. The official...
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.
Mehmet Ali Ağca is a Turkish former hitman for the Grey Wolves. On 1 February 1979, he murdered journalist Abdi İpekçi, known for his leftist views, and was imprisoned, but escaped. He travelled...
Police bomb MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia, killing six adults and five children, and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.
The 1985 MOVE bombing, locally known by its date, May 13, 1985, was the aerial bombing of a house, and the destruction of 61 more houses by the subsequent fire, in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of...
Large groups of students occupy Tiananmen Square and begin a hunger strike.
Protests led by students and workers, known in China as the June Fourth Incident, were held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, from 15 April to 4 June 1989. After weeks of unsuccessful attempts...
The Dinamo–Red Star riot takes place at Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb, Croatia, between the Bad Blue Boys (fans of Dinamo Zagreb) and the Delije (fans of Red Star Belgrade).
The Dinamo Zagreb–Red Star Belgrade riot was a football riot which took place on 13 May 1990 at Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb, SR Croatia, then part of SFR Yugoslavia, between the Bad Blue Boys and the...
Li Hongzhi gives the first public lecture on Falun Gong in Changchun, People's Republic of China.
Li Hongzhi is a Chinese religious leader. He is the founder and leader of Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, a United States–based new religious movement. Li began his public teachings of Falun Gong on 13...
Alison Hargreaves, a 33-year-old British mother, becomes the first woman to ascend Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas.
Alison Jane Hargreaves was a British mountaineer. Her accomplishments included scaling Mount Everest alone, without supplementary oxygen or support from a Sherpa team, in 1995. She soloed all the...
Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kill 600 people.
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are sometimes called...
Race riots break out in Jakarta, Indonesia, where shops owned by Indonesians of Chinese descent are looted and women raped.
The May 1998 Indonesia riots, also known colloquially as the 1998 tragedy or simply the 98 event, were incidents of riots and civil unrest in Indonesia, many of which targeted the country's ethnic...
India carries out two nuclear weapon tests at Pokhran, following the three conducted on May 11. The United States and Japan impose economic sanctions on India.
Pokhran-II was a series of five nuclear weapon tests conducted by India in May 1998. The bombs were detonated at the Indian Army's Pokhran Test Range in Rajasthan. It was the second instance of...
Kosovo War: NATO bombs the village of Koriša, killing at least 87 people.
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), which controlled...
A fireworks storage depot explodes in a residential neighborhood in Enschede, Netherlands, killing 23 people and injuring 950 others.
The Enschede fireworks disaster was a catastrophic fireworks explosion on 13 May 2000 in Enschede, Netherlands. The explosion killed 23 people, including four firefighters, and injured 950 others. A...
Andijan uprising, Uzbekistan: Troops open fire on crowds of protestors after a prison break; at least 187 people were killed according to official estimates.
On 13 May 2005, protests erupted in Andijan, Uzbekistan. At one point, troops from the Uzbek National Security Service (SNB) fired into a crowd of protesters. Estimates of those killed on 13 May...
São Paulo violence: Rebellions occur in several prisons in Brazil.
The 2006 São Paulo violence outbreak began on the night of May 12, 2006 in São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in South America. It was among the worst outbreaks of violence in recorded Brazilian...
Two bombs explode in the Charsadda District of Pakistan killing 98 people and wounding 140 others.
A double bombing occurred on 13 May 2011 in Shabqadar Fort in Charsadda District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. 98 people were killed when two suicide bombs exploded in the Frontier...
Forty-nine dismembered bodies are discovered by Mexican authorities on Mexican Federal Highway 40.
The Cadereyta Jiménez massacre occurred on the Fed 40 on 12–13 May 2012. Mexican officials stated that 49 people were decapitated and mutilated by members of Los Zetas drug cartel and dumped by a...
American physician Kermit Gosnell is found guilty in Pennsylvania of murdering three infants born alive during attempted abortions, involuntary manslaughter of a woman during an abortion procedure, and other charges.
Kermit Barron Gosnell was an American serial killer and abortion doctor. At his clinic in West Philadelphia, Gosnell provided illegal late-term abortions, committed post-labor infanticide after many...
An explosion at an underground coal mine in southwest Turkey kills 301 miners.
On 13 May 2014, blasting at Eynez coal mine in Soma, Manisa, Turkey, caused an underground mine fire, which burned until 15 May. In total, 301 people were killed, making it the worst mine disaster...