TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: OCTOBER 13
0054 Nero succeeds his great uncle Claudius, who was murdered by his wife, as the new emperor of Rome.
1307 Members of the Knights of Templar are arrested throughout France, imprisoned and tortured by the order of King Philip the Fair of France.
1670 Virginia passes a law that blacks arriving in the colonies as Christians cannot be used as slaves.
1773 First Spiral Galaxy Discovered. French astronomer, Charles Messier, discovered the Whirlpool Galaxy that is about 30 million light-years from Earth.
1792 Construction of the White House Begins. It took 8 years for it to become livable and President John Adams became the first president to occupy the building on November 1, 1800.
1843 The Jewish organization B’nai B’rith was founded.
1849 The California state constitution, which prohibits slavery, is signed in Monterey.
1884 Greenwich in London established as the universal time meridian of longitude
1904 Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams is published.
1924 Mecca falls without struggle to Saudi forces led by Abdulaziz Ibn Saud
1946 The Fourth Republic begins in France; will continue to 1958.
1947 “Kukla, Fran & Ollie” premieres
1958 Paddington Bear Makes His Debut
1972 Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashes in the Andes Mountains, near the Argentina-Chile border; only 16 survivors (out of 45 people aboard) are rescued on Dec. 23.
1976 Dr. F.A. Murphy at Center for Disease Control obtains the first electron micrograph of an Ebola viral particle.
1989 U.S. President George H.W. Bush called for an overthrow of the Panamanian ruler Manuel Antonio Noriega.
1998 The National Basketball Association (NBA) canceled regular season games, due to work stoppage, for first time in its 51-year history.
1999 The U.S. Senate rejected the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
2010 After being underground for a record 69 days, all 33 miners trapped in a Copiapo, Chile, mine are rescued.
2012 Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz was shot at and injured. Oficial reports suggest that he was mistakenly shot by the military.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
