On This Day … 13 April

Events

  • 1111 – Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
  • 1204 – Constantinople falls to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire.
  • 1612 – Miyamoto Musashi defeats Sasaki Kojirō at Funajima island.
  • 1613 – Samuel Argall, having captured Native American princess Pocahontas in Passapatanzy, Virginia, sets off with her to Jamestown with the intention of exchanging her for English prisoners held by her father.
  • 1777 – American Revolutionary War: American forces are ambushed and defeated in the Battle of Bound Brook, New Jersey.
  • 1849 – Lajos Kossuth presents the Hungarian Declaration of Independence in a closed session of the National Assembly.
  • 1861 – American Civil War: Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederate forces.
  • 1865 – American Civil War: Raleigh, North Carolina is occupied by Union Forces.
  • 1873 – The Colfax massacre, in which more than 60 black men are murdered, takes place.
  • 1909 – The military of the Ottoman Empire reverses the Ottoman countercoup of 1909 to force the overthrow of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
  • 1919 – Jallianwala Bagh massacre: British Indian Army troops lead by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer killed approx 379-1000 unarmed demonstrators including men and women in Amritsar, India; and approximately 1,500 injured.
  • 1941 – A pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed.
  • 1943 – World War II: The discovery of mass graves of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government-in-exile in London and the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility.
  • 1945 – World War II: German troops kill more than 1,000 political and military prisoners in Gardelegen, Germany.
  • 1945 – World War II: Soviet and Bulgarian forces capture Vienna.
  • 1948 – In an ambush, 78 Jewish doctors, nurses and medical students from Hadassah Hospital, and a British soldier, are massacred by Arabs in Sheikh Jarrah.
    • This event came to be known as the Hadassah medical convoy massacre.
  • 1953 – CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind-control program Project MKUltra.
  • 1972 – Vietnam War: The Battle of An Lộc begins.
  • 1975 – An attack by the Phalangist resistance kills 26 militia members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, marking the start of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.
  • 2017 – The US drops the largest ever non-nuclear weapon on Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.

People (Births)

  • 1570 – Guy Fawkes, English soldier, planned the Gunpowder Plot (probable; d. 1606).
  • 1593 – Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, English soldier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (d. 1641).
  • 1764 – Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, French general and politician, French Minister of War (d. 1830).
  • 1784 – Friedrich Graf von Wrangel, Prussian field marshal (d. 1877).
  • 1891 – Maurice Buckley, Australian sergeant, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1921).
  • 1892 – Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet, English air marshal (d. 1984).
  • 1892 – Robert Watson-Watt, Scottish engineer, invented Radar (d. 1973).
  • 1894 – Joie Ray, American runner (d. 1978).
  • 1897 – Werner Voss, German lieutenant and pilot (d. 1917).
  • 1899 – Harold Osborn, American high jumper and decathlete (d. 1975).
  • 1913 – Kermit Tyler, American lieutenant and pilot (d. 2010).
  • 1920 – Claude Cheysson, French lieutenant and politician, French Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 2012).
  • 1933 – Ben Nighthorse Campbell, American soldier and politician.
  • 1944 – Franco Arese, Italian runner.
  • 1945 – Bob Kalsu, American football player and lieutenant (d. 1970).
  • 1947 – Yves Landry, Canadian cyclist.
  • 1948 – Nam Hae-il, South Korean admiral.
  • 1960 – Olaf Ludwig, German cyclist and manager.
  • 1971 – Franck Esposito, French swimmer.
  • 1983 – Nicole Cooke, Welsh cyclist.
  • 1986 – Michael Bingham, American-English sprinter.
  • 1989 – Ryan Bailey, American sprinter.

People (Deaths)

  • 989 – Bardas Phokas, Byzantine general.
  • 1612 – Sasaki Kojirō, Japanese samurai (b. 1585).
  • 1716 – Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington, English admiral and politician (b. 1648).
  • 1890 – Samuel J. Randall, American captain, lawyer, and politician, 33rd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (b. 1828).
  • 1918 – Lavr Kornilov, Russian general (b. 1870).
  • 1961 – John A. Bennett, American soldier (b. 1935).
  • 1966 – Abdul Salam Arif, Iraqi colonel and politician, 2nd President of Iraq (b. 1921).
  • 1966 – Georges Duhamel, French soldier and author (b. 1884).
  • 1975 – François Tombalbaye, Chadian soldier, academic, and politician, 1st President of Chad (b. 1918).
  • 1997 – Bryant Bowles, American soldier and activist, founded the National Association for the Advancement of White People (b. 1920).
  • 2012 – William B. Buffum, American soldier and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Lebanon (b. 1921).
  • 2012 – Cecil Chaudhry, Pakistani pilot, academic, and activist (b. 1941).
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