TODAY HISTORY LESSON: APRIL 13
1250 The Seventh Crusade is defeated in Egypt, Louis IX of France captured
1556 Portuguese Marranos who revert back to Judaism burned by order of Pope
1598 King Henry IV of France signed the Edict of Nantes which granted political rights to French Protestant Huguenots.
1775 Lord North extends the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act forbids trade with any country other than Britain and Ireland.
1829 English Emancipation Act grants freedom of religion to Catholics
1860 1st Pony Express reaches Sacramento, California
1861 After 34 hours of bombardment, Union-held Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederates.
1864 Union forces under Gen. Sherman begin their devastating march through Georgia.
1868 Abyssinian War ends as British and Indian troops capture Magdala and Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II commits suicide
1902 J.C. Penny opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
1919 British forces kill hundreds of Indian nationalists in the Amritsar Massacre.
1943 Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Jefferson Memorial.
1946 Eddie Klepp, a white pitcher signed by defending Negro League champion Cleveland Buckeyes, is barred from field in Birmingham AL
1959 Vatican edict forbids Roman Catholics from voting for communists
1962 In the U.S., major steel companies rescinded announced price increases. The John F. Kennedy administration had been applying pressure against the price increases.
1970 An oxygen tank explodes on Apollo 13, preventing a planned moon landing and jeopardizing the lives of the three-man crew.
1975 Civil War began in Lebanon when gunmen killed 4 Christian Phalangists who retaliated by killing 27 Palestinians.
1976 The U.S. Federal Reserve begins issuing $2 bicentennial notes.
1981 Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke received a Pulitzer Prize for her feature about an 8-year-old heroin addict named “Jimmy.” Cooke relinquished the prize two days later after admitting she had fabricated the story.
1984 U.S. President Reagan sent emergency military aid to El Salvador without congressional approval.
1990 The Soviet Union accepted responsibility for the World War II murders of thousands of imprisoned Polish officers in the Katyn Forest. The Soviets had previously blamed the massacre on the Nazis.
1999 Jack Kervorkian was sentenced in Pontiac, MI, to 10 to 25 years in prison for the second-degree murder of Thomas Youk. Youk’s assisted suicide was videotaped and shown on “60 Minutes” in 1998.
2002 Venezuela’s interim president, Pedro Carmona, resigned a day after taking office. Thousands of protesters had supported over the ousting of president Hugo Chavez.
2012 Kwangmyong-3, a North Korean Earth observation satellite, exploded shortly after its launch. The U.S. and other countries called the launch a violation of United Nations Security Council rules.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
