On March 13th...

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1615 Antonio Pignatelli (Pope Innocent XII) was born.

1639 Cambridge College was renamed Harvard for clergyman John Harvard.

1677 Massachusetts gained title to Maine for $6,000.

1733 Chemist Joseph Priestley was born.

1741 Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II was born.

1764 Charles Grey, Prime Minister of Great Britain and Ireland, was born.

1781 William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.
1781 Author Johann Wyss was born.

1798 Abigail Powers Fillmore, wife of U.S. President Millard Fillmore, was born.

1842 Inventor Henry Shrapnel died.

1852 The Uncle Sam cartoon figure made its debut in the New York Lantern Weekly.

1855 Astronomer Percival Lowell was born.

1865 Confederate President Jefferson Davis signed a bill authorizing the use of slaves as soldiers.

1868 The U.S. Senate began the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.

1869 The Arkansas State Legislature passed an anti-Ku Klux Klan law.

1877 Chester Greenwood patented earmuffs.

1881 Tsar Alexander II of Russia died.

1884 The United States adopted Standard Time.

1887 Chester Greenwood patented earmuffs.

1894 J. J. Johnstone invented the horse racing starting gate.

1897 San Diego State University was founded.

1900 British troops occupied Bloemfontein, capital of the Orange Free State.

1901 Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States, died.

1906 Susan B. Anthony, abolitionist and suffragette, died.

1910 Musician Sammy Kaye was born.

1911 L. Ron Howard, founder of Scientology, was born.

1913 The Kansas State Legislature approved censorship of motion pictures.

1918 The Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Arenas, 10-7, to win the first ever National Hockey League championship.

1921 Mongolia declared its independence from China.
1921 Cartoonist Al Jaffee was born.

1923 Lee de Forest demonstrated his sound-on-film moving pictures, in New York City.

1925 Tennessee made it illegal to teach evolution.

1930 Clyde Tombaugh announced his discovery of Pluto.

1935 Driving tests were introduced in Great Britain.

1938 Lawyer Clarence Darrow died.

1939 Singer Neil Sedaka was born.

1941 Singer Charo was born.

1942 Julia Flikke, of the Nurse Corps, became the first woman Colonel in the U.S. Army.

1943 Author Stephen Vincent Benet died.

1950 Actor William H. Macy was born.

1955 African-American opera singer Marian Anderson gave a concert at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

1960 Bassist Adam Clayton was born.

1961 A mudslide at a reclamation project near Kiev, Russia, killed 145 persons.
1961 Cyprus was admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations.

1966 ? and the Mysterians, recorded their only hit single, "96 Tears."

1979 The European Monetary System was established.

1982 "T. J. Hooker" premiered on ABC-TV.

1986 Cosmonauts Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyev became the first inhabitants of the Soviet space station Mir.
1986 Microsoft had its Initial Public Offering.

1987 John Gotti was acquitted of racketeering.

1991 Exxon paid a billion dollars in fines and cleanup costs for the Valdez oil spill.

1992 An esrthquake killed over 500 persons in Erzincan, Turkey.

1996 Thomas Hamilton shot and killed 16 children and 1 teacher at Dunblane (Scotland) Primary School before committing suicide.

2005 Terry Ratzmann shot and killed 6 members of the Living Church of God and the minister at the Sheraton Inn in Brookfield, Wisconsin, before killing himself.

2006 Actress Maureen Stapleton died.
2006 Game show host Peter Tomarken died.

2012 A ferry collided with an oil tanker near Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 110 persons and leaving another 63 missing.
2012 A bus crash near Sierre, Switzerland, killed 28 persons, including 22 children.

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This page was last updated on August 19, 2018.