February 13: Today in History – Historical Events
Early Centuries – February 13 Historic Events – Before the 1700s
1. 13th Feb 1130: Gregorio de Papareschi was on this day elected as Pope Innocent II.
2. 13th Feb 1258: The Abbasid Caliphate was destroyed and the Moguls took over Baghdad.
3. 13th Feb 1349: Jews were on this day expelled from Burgsordf in Switzerland.
4. 13th Feb 1575: Henry III of France was Coroneted on this day at Rheims.
5. 13th Feb 1601: This day marks the departure of the 1st East India Company from London under the leadership of John Lancaster.
6. 13th Feb 1633: Astronomer and physicist of Italy Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for a trial for professing the belief that the earth moves around the Sun.
7. 13th Feb 1668: The Treaty of Lisbon was signed today. Spain recognizes Portugal.
8. 13th Feb 1669: The Bill of Rights was adopted by the British parliament on this day. The bill establishes the rights of the parliament and places limits on the Monarch.
9. 13th Feb 1692: In the Glencoe massacre about 78 MacDonalds were killed by the rival Campbell clan members, allegedly for not promptly pledging alliance to the new King, King Williams of Orange.
10. 13th Feb 1693: College of William and Mary opened this day in Virginia.
18th Century – What Happened on February 13 – The 1700s
11. 13th Feb 1741: On this day the first magazine in America, “American Magazine” was published by Andrew Bedford.
12. 13th Feb 1755: The Treaty of Gianti Java was on this day signed by rebel leader Mangkubuni.
13. 13th Feb 1777: On this day Philosopher Marquis Sade was arrested without any charge and imprisoned in Vincennes fortress.
14. 13th Feb 1782: St Christopher on this day was occupied by the French fleet.
15. 13th Feb 1786: the University of Georgia on this day selected Abraham Baldwin as president.
16. 13th Feb 1795: the University of North Carolina, which was the 1st state university in the United States opened on this day.
17. 13th Feb 1799: The Massachusetts Legislature on this day passed the first US law regulating insurance.
19th Century – February 13 This Day That Year – The 1800s
18. 13th Feb 1815: The Cambridge Union Society was founded on this day.
19. 13th Feb 1816: Fire destroys Teatro San Carlo in Naples today.
20. 13th Feb 1826: This day marks the formation of the American Temperance Society in Boston.
21. 13th Feb 1832: A cholera case was reported in London. It was the first time cholera appeared in London.
22. 13th Feb 1837: Poverty combined with the increase in the cost of floor triggered riots in New York on this day.
23. 13th Feb 1861: Abraham Lincoln was on this day declared as President of the US in Washington D.C.
24. 13th Feb 1861: Chiricahua Indians were on this day attacked and defeated by Col Bernard Irwin.
25. 13th Feb 1880: On this day work begins in Brussels on covering Senne for creating the modern central boulevards.
26. 13th Feb 1881: The first feminist newspaper was published in Paris on this day. The newspaper La Citoyenne was published by activist Hubertine Auclert.
27. 13th Feb 1886: Painter Thomas Eakins resigned on this day from the Philadelphia Academy of Art amidst controversy over the use of male nudes in coed art classes.
28. 13th Feb 1895: The moving picture projector was patented on this day.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day February 13th – The 1900s
29. 13th Feb 1900: The Anglo-German accord of 1899 was ratified on this day by Reichstag, in which Britain gave up its right on Soma in favor of Germany and the United States.
30. 13th Feb 1907: The British Parliament was on this day stormed by English Suffragettes on this day. 60 women were arrested.
31. 13th Feb 1914: On this day the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) was formed in New York City.
32. 13th Feb 1920: The National Negro Baseball League was organized on this day.
33. 13th Feb 1920: Switzerland’s perpetual neutrality was on this day recognized by the League of Nations.
34. 13th Feb 1923: The first Black pro Basketball team, “Renaissance” was organized on this day.
35. 13th Feb 1925: The US Congress on this day made it more difficult to appeal to the Supreme Court.
36. 13th Feb 1927: The uprising against Gen Carmona’s regime in Portugal was defeated on this day.
37. 13th Feb 1929: The US approved the construction of 14 cruisers and an aircraft carrier by the Cruiser Act, USA.
38. 13th Feb 1934: The Socialist party was on this day banned by the Austrian Dollfuss government.
39. 13th Feb 1934: Soviet steamship Cheliuskin sank in the Arctic Ocean on this day.
40. 13th Feb 1935: The first surgical operation in the US for the relief of angina pectoris was on this day conducted in Cleveland.
41. 13th Feb 1941: The Dutch Jewish Council was on this day attacked by Nazi leaders.
42. 13th Feb 1942: Hitler’s invasion of England “Operation Sealion” was canceled today.
43. 13th Feb 1943: Women’s Marine Corps was created on this day.
44. 13th Feb 1943: There was a German attack on Sidi Bou Zid, Tunisia as General Eisenhower visited the front.
45. 13th Feb 1945: During World War II the Soviets on this day captured Budapest in Hungary from the German army.
46. 13th Feb 1945: The Allied forces on this day launched Operation Thunderclap by the bombing of the German city of Dresden. The fire bombs killed over 1, 35, 000 people.
47. 13th Feb 1949: A radio station in Ecuador was burnt by a mob after broadcasting H.G. Well’s “War of the Worlds”.
48. 13th Feb 1950: A US Air Force B-36 bomber crashed northern British Columbia coast during a simulated nuclear attack on San Francisco. It dropped a Mark 4 bomb without the Plutonium core which is required for a nuclear blast.
49. 13th Feb 1950: Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnamese government was on this day recognized by Albania. It was the sixth Eastern Bloc country to recognize the Vietnam government.
50. 13th Feb 1951: The offensive of the Chinese forces was on this day contained by the U.N. forces at the Battle of Chipyong-ni, in Korea.
51. 13th Feb 1953: The U.S. was asked by Pope Pious XII to grant clemency to convicted spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
52. 13th Feb 1955: Israel on this day acquired 4 Dead Sea Scrolls from a Christian Clergyman, a Syrian orthodox archbishop at an estimated price of $ 300, 000.
53. 13th Feb 1959: Romulo Betancourt on this day began serving his second term as President of Venezuela. He continued in office up to 1964.
54. 13th Feb 1960: France performed its first nuclear test at Reggane Proving Grounds Algeria.
55. 13th Feb 1966: On this day U.S.S.R. performs a nuclear test at its test site in Kazakh.
56. 13th Feb 1968: the U.S. on this day sent 10,500 more combat troops to Vietnam.
57. 13th Feb 1970: It was reported that General Motors is redesigning its automobiles to run on unleaded fuel.
58. 13th Feb 1970: About 48 people are reported to have been killed by man man-eating tiger about 80 KM from Delhi, India.
59. 13th Feb 1971: South Vietnamese troops backed by U.S. air and artillery support invaded Laos on this day.
60. 13th Feb 1972: The eleventh Winter Olympic Games closed on this day at Sapporo in Japan.
61. 13th Feb 1973: The U.S. dollar was on this day was devalued by 10%.
62. 13th Feb 1974: The U.S.S.R. on this day expelled dissident Nobel writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
63. 13th Feb 1975: A Turkish-Cypriot Federation was on this day proclaimed by the Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash.
64. 13th Feb 1976: In New Zealand, Peter Casserly hand sheared 353 lambs in 9 hours, which was a record.
65. 13th Feb 1977: Eric Heiden won the world speed skating championship. He was the first American to win the championship.
66. 13th Feb 1978: the U.S. on this day performed its nuclear test at its test site in Nevada.
67. 13th Feb 1979: Windstorm breaks up Washington State’s Hood Canal Bridge on this day.
68. 13th Feb 1979: The Guardian Angles crime fighters formed in New York today.
69. 13th Feb 1980: Apollo Computer Inc. was on this day incorporated.
70. 13th Feb 1980: The 13th Winter Olympic Games opened in New York today. Its opening ceremony took place in Lake Placid, New York.
71. 13th Feb 1981: A series of sewer explosions occurred in Louisville, Kentucky. More than two miles of road were destroyed in the explosion.
72. 13th Feb 1984: The first heart and liver transplant was conducted on a six-year-old Texan Stormie Johns on this day.
73. 13th Feb 1984: Yuri Andropov on this day was succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko as the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
74. 13th Feb 1988: The 15th Winter Olympic Games opened on this day in Calgary in Canada.
75. 13th Feb 1988: The European community on this day planned to remove internal boundaries by 1st Jan 1992.
76. 13th Feb 1989: The Prime Minister of Belgium, Vanden Boeynants, who was kidnapped earlier, was released on this day.
77. 13th Feb 1990: An agreement was forged on this day between the United States and its European allies with the Soviet Union and East Germany on a two-stage formula for the unification of Germany.
78. 13th Feb 1991: A laser-guided U.S. bomb destroyed an underground facility in Iraq killing hundreds of civilians. The U.S. had identified it as an underground facility but the Iraqi officials said it was a bomb shelter.
79. 13th Feb 1995: The Hague war crimes tribunal on this day indicted 21 Serbs for atrocities committed against Croats and Muslims interned in the Bosnian prison camp.
80. 13th Feb 1997: The Astronauts on space shuttle Discovery brought on board the Hubble Space Telescope for a tune-up. The tune-up would enable the telescope to see further into the universe.
21st Century – February 13 This Day In History – The 2000s
81. 13th Feb 2000: In Kandahar, Afghanistan a 10-year-old boy executed a man convicted of murdering his father. Another man convicted of highway robbery was ordered to have his right hand and left foot amputated as per Islamic law.
82. 13th Feb 2000: Hans von Sponeck, a top U.N. official in Iraq quit in protest that sanctions were undermining humanitarian efforts.
83. 13th Feb 2000: Cyanide spill in Romania reached the Danube in Yugoslavia and weakened to nonlethal levels. It had devastated life in the Tisa River in Hungary and Serbia. Serbia threatens to demand compensation in the international court.
84. 13th Feb 2000: In Russia President Putin signed a decree to re-establish “Special departments”, to seek out political disloyalty in the military.
85. 13th Feb 2001: President Bush nominated Governor Paul Cellucci as ambassador to Canada. This cleared the way for Jane Swift to become the first female governor of Massachusetts.
86. 13th Feb 2001: US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill urged Congress to speed up plans for across-the-board tax cuts and doubling of child credit.
87. 13th Feb 2001: In Hawaii, two Army Black Hawk helicopters crashed. Six soldiers were killed in the crash.
88. 13th Feb 2001: An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale struck El Salvador. The quake killed 402 people and injured 2432.
89. 13th Feb 2001: Massoud Ayyad, a Palestinian security official was on this day killed by anti-tank missiles fired at his car from Israeli gunships.
90. 13th Feb 2002: President Bush welcomed President Musharraf of Pakistan to the White House. Musharraf sought a revival of the arms deal and a relaxation of tariffs on textiles. President Bush agreed to $142 million in trade benefits.
91. 13th Feb 2002: The US House of Representatives on this day voted 240-189 against soft money donations to national parties as part of the Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill. Individual contributions were raised from 1K to 2K.
92. 13th Feb 2002: The former Mayor of New York City Mayor Rudolf Giuliani was on this day made an honorary knight by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
93. 13th Feb 2002: Argentina on this day adopted a 20% tax on energy export.
94. 13th Feb 2002: Fox hunting with dogs was outlawed by the Scottish Parliament.
95. 13th Feb 2003: In southern Columbia, a U.S. government plane carrying five people crashed short of the airport in rebel territory. Those on board are suspected to be spirited away by leftist rebels.
96. 13th Feb 2004: San Francisco on this day issued as many as 665 licenses for same-sex marriage.
97. 13th Feb 2005: Iran on this day rejected European demand to stop building a heavy water nuclear reactor in return for a light-water reactor.
98. 13th 2006: In Nepal the controversial anti-corruption body set up by King Gynendra was on this day paving the way for the release of ousted PM Sher Bahadur Dube from prison.
99. 13th Feb 2007: The U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US plans to cancel $391 million in outstanding debt owed by Liberia. She further urged others to help the struggling West African nation.
100. 13th Feb 2007: India’s central bank on this day tightened monetary policy for a second time in two weeks. This step was taken to fight accelerating inflation, hiking the amount of cash commercial banks must keep in deposit.
See Also: