On April 13, 1970, disaster strikes 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blows up on Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission. Astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise had left Earth two days before for the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon but were forced to turn their attention to simply making it home alive.
1059 – Papal bull “In nomine Domini” (In the Name of the Lord) issued by Pope Nicholas II establishing popes elected by Bishops and Cardinals not appointed by their predecessor
1111 – After months of controversy Pope Paschal II crowns Henry V, the King of Germany and Italy, as the Holy Roman Emperor
1250 – The Seventh Crusade is defeated in Egypt, Louis IX of France captured
1556 – Portuguese converted Christian Marranos who revert to Judaism burned by order of Pope
1560 – Giovanni, son of Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano is executed for poisoning his wife, despite his father’s efforts to save him
1598 – King Henry IV of France signed the Edict of Nantes which granted political rights to French Protestant Huguenots.
1741 – Dutch people protest poor quality of bread
1759 – The French defeated the European allies in Battle of Bergen.
1775 – Lord North extended the New England Restraining Act to South, Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act prohibited trade with any country other than Britain and Ireland.
1796 – The first known elephant to arrive in the United States from Bengal, India.
1808 – William “Juda” Henry Lane perfected the tap dance.
1829 – The English Parliament granted freedom of religion to Catholics.
1849 – The Hungarian Republic was proclaimed.
1860 – The first mail was delivered via Pony Express when a westbound rider arrived in Sacremento, CA from St. Joseph, MO.
1861 – After 34 hours of bombardment, the Union-held Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederates.
1864 – Union forces under Gen. Sherman begin their devastating march through Georgia.
1870 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in New York City.
1873 – Colfax Massacre in Grant Parish, Louisiana (60 blacks killed)
1902 – J.C. Penny opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
1904 – A squadron of the Russian fleet is decoyed out of Port Arthur by Japanese maneuvers, when they realize they are sailing into a trap; their battleship Petropavlovsk hits a mine and sinks, with a loss of 700 men
1909 – In Constantinople the primarily Albanian First Army Corps seizes the parliament building and telegraphs offices, forcing the Ottoman statesman Hilmi Pasha to resign
1916 – The first hybrid, seed corn was purchased for 15-cents a bushel by Samuel Ramsay.
1918 – Electrical fire kills 38 mental patients at Oklahoma State Hospital
1919 – British troops massacre around 400 unarmed civilians in India, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered his men to shoot into the crowd, in his own words “to punish the Indians for disobedience.” The Indian independence movement grew considerably after the Amritsar massacre.
1934 – US Congress passes Johnson Debt Default Act https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/13/congress-passes-johnson-debt-default-act-april-13-1934-512632
1941 – German troops captured Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial.
1945 – Vienna fell to Soviet troops.
1945 – Canadian soldier Léo Major single-handedly liberates Dutch town of Zwolle by fooling Germans into thinking a raid had begun
1946 – Eddie Klepp, a white pitcher signed by defending Negro League champ Cleveland Buckeyes, is barred from field in Birmingham, Alabama
1948 – Hadassah Convoy Massacre: Vehicles bringing Jewish staff and medical supplies to Hadassah Hospital and University on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem attacked by Arab forces; 79 killed by bombs, grenades, and sniper fire
1949 – Philip S. Hench and associates announced that cortizone was an effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
1954 – Milwaukee Braves’ Hank Aaron’s 1st game
1954 – Robert Oppenheimer accused of being a communist
1959 – A Vatican edict prohibited Roman Catholics from voting for Communists.
1960 – The world’s first satellite navigation system is launched, Transit 1B was primarily used by the U.S. Navy to update the navigation systems aboard their Polaris submarines.
1961 – The U.N. General Assembly condemned South Africa due to apartheid.
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 – Mikis Theodorakis is freed, The Greek composer and politician was interned in the concentration camp of Oropos by the right-wing military junta. The solidarity movement demanding his release included Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, and Harry Belafonte.
1970 – An oxygen tank exploded on Apollo 13, preventing a planned moon landing. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/apollo-13-oxygen-tank-explodes
1972 – The first strike in the history of major league baseball ended. Players had walked off the field 13 days earlier.
1975 – Christian Falange kills 27 Palestinians, begins Lebanese civil war
1976 – The U.S. Federal Reserve introduced $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.
1984 – Christopher Walker was killed in a fight with police in New Hampshire. Walker was wanted as a suspect in the kidnappings of 11 young women in several states.
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.
1994 – Presidential guard at Kigali, Rwanda, chops 1,200 church members to death
1998 – NationsBank and BankAmerica announced a $62.5 billion merger, creating the country’s first coast-to-coast bank.
1998 – Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep, gave natural birth to a healthy baby lamb.
1997 – Tiger Woods becomes the youngest ever golfer to win the Masters Tournament
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 – Twenty-five Hindus were killed and about 30 were wounded when grenades were thrown by suspected Islamic guerrillas near Jammu-Kashir.
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 – North Korean long range rocket testing ends in failure after the rocket broke up after launch
2013 – 20 civilians are killed by the government bombing of Saraqib, Idlib
2015 – Migrant ship carrying around 550 sinks off the Libyan coast, about 400 drown
2019 – Body of 38-year-old Filipino woman discovered in abandoned mine starts the hunt for Cyprus’s first serial killer, at least 5 other bodies later discovered
2020 – NY Governor Andrew Cuomo says “I believe the worst is over if we continue to be smart,” about the COVID-19 pandemic in New York as death toll passes 10,000
2021 – Voice actor Hank Azaria who is white apologizes for voicing Indian character Apu on “The Simpsons” for 30 years
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
