If you ever get bored, Wikipedia can give you hours of fun. Here is this day in history according to the editors of Wikipedia
February 13 is the 44th day of the year in
the Gregorian calendar; 322 days remain until the end of the year (we are in a leap
year).
Events
Pre-1600
·
962 – Emperor Otto I and Pope
John XII co-sign the Diploma Ottonianum, recognizing John as ruler of Rome.[1]
·
1322 – The central tower of Ely
Cathedral falls on the night of 12th–13th.[2]
·
1462 – The Treaty of
Westminster is finalized between Edward IV of England and the Scottish Lord of
the Isles.[3]
·
1503 – Challenge of Barletta:
Tournament between 13 Italian and 13 French knights near Barletta.[4]
·
1542 – Catherine Howard, the
fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.[5]
1601–1900
·
1633 – Galileo Galilei arrives
in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.[6]
·
1642 – The Clergy Act becomes
law, excluding bishops of the Church of England from serving in the House of
Lords.[7]
·
1660 – With the accession of
young Charles XI of Sweden, his regents begin negotiations to end the Second
Northern War.[8]
·
1689 – William and Mary are
proclaimed co-rulers of England.[9]
·
1692 – Massacre of Glencoe:
Almost 80 Macdonalds at Glen Coe, Scotland are killed early in the morning for
not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange.[10]
·
1726 – Parliament of Negrete
between Mapuche and Spanish authorities in Chile bring an end to the Mapuche
uprising of 1723–26.[11]
·
1755 – Treaty of Giyanti signed
by VOC, Pakubuwono III and Prince Mangkubumi. The treaty divides the Javanese
kingdom of Mataram into two: Sunanate of Surakarta and Sultanate of Yogyakarta.
·
1849 – The delegation headed by
Metropolitan bishop Andrei Șaguna hands out to the Emperor Franz Joseph I of
Austria the General Petition of Romanian leaders in Transylvania, Banat and
Bukovina, which demands that the Romanian nation be recognized.
·
1861 – Italian unification: The
Siege of Gaeta ends with the capitulation of the defending fortress,
effectively bringing an end of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
·
1867 – Work begins on the
covering of the Senne, burying Brussels's primary river and creating the modern
central boulevards.
·
1880 – Thomas Edison observes
Thermionic emission.
1901–present
·
1913 – The 13th Dalai Lama
proclaims Tibetan independence following a period of domination by Manchu Qing
dynasty and initiated a period of almost four decades of independence.
·
1914 – Copyright: In New York
City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established
to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
·
1920 – The Negro National
League is formed.
·
1931 – The British Raj
completes its transfer from Calcutta to New Delhi.
·
1935 – A jury in Flemington,
New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of
the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh.
·
1945 – World War II: The siege
of Budapest concludes with the unconditional surrender of German and Hungarian
forces to the Red Army.
·
1945 – World War II: Royal Air
Force bombers are dispatched to Dresden, Germany to attack the city with a
massive aerial bombardment.
·
1951 – Korean War: Battle of
Chipyong-ni, which represented the "high-water mark" of the Chinese
incursion into South Korea, commences.
·
1954 – Frank Selvy becomes the
only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single
game.
·
1955 – Israel obtains four of
the seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
·
1955 – Twenty-nine people are
killed when Sabena Flight 503 crashes into Monte Terminillo near Rieti,
Italy.[12]
·
1960 – With the success of a
nuclear test codenamed "Gerboise Bleue", France becomes the fourth
country to possess nuclear weapons.
·
1960 – Black college students
stage the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville,
Tennessee.
·
1961 – An allegedly
500,000-year-old rock is discovered near Olancha, California, US, that appears
to anachronistically encase a spark plug.
·
1967 – American researchers
discover the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of
Spain.
·
1975 – Fire at One World Trade
Center (North Tower) of the World Trade Center in New York.
·
1978 – Hilton bombing: A bomb
explodes in a refuse truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia,
killing two refuse collectors and a policeman.
·
1979 – An intense windstorm
strikes western Washington and sinks a 0.5-mile (0.80 km) long section of the
Hood Canal Bridge.
·
1981 – A series of sewer
explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.
·
1983 – A cinema fire in Turin,
Italy, kills 64 people.
·
1984 – Konstantin Chernenko
succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union.
·
1990 – German reunification: An
agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
·
1991 – Gulf War: Two
laser-guided "smart bombs" destroy the Amiriyah shelter in Baghdad.
Allied forces said the bunker was being used as a military communications
outpost, but over 400 Iraqi civilians inside were killed.
·
1996 – The Nepalese Civil War
is initiated in the Kingdom of Nepal by the Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist-Centre).
·
2001 – An earthquake measuring
7.6 on the Richter magnitude scale hits El Salvador, killing at least 944.
·
2004 – The Harvard–Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known
diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star
"Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
·
2007 – Taiwan opposition leader
Ma Ying-jeou resigns as the chairman of the Kuomintang party after being
indicted on charges of embezzlement during his tenure as the mayor of Taipei;
Ma also announces his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election.
·
2008 – Australian Prime
Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and
the Stolen Generations.
·
2010 – A bomb explodes in the
city of Pune, Maharashtra, India, killing 17 and injuring 60 more.
·
2011 – For the first time in
more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, are able to hunt
and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a
centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855.
·
2012 – The European Space
Agency (ESA) conducted the first launch of the European Vega rocket from
Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
·
2017 – Kim Jong-nam, brother of
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, is assassinated at Kuala Lumpur
International Airport.
·
2021 – Former U.S. President
Donald Trump is acquitted in his second impeachment trial.[13]
·
2021 – A major winter storm
causes blackouts and kills at least 82 people in Texas and northern
Mexico.[14][15]
