Saturday, May 13, 2017

THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― MAY 13

May 13 is the 133rd day of the year (134th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 232 days remaining until the end of the year. Next Friday the 13th, January 2017.

NATIONAL FROG JUMPING DAY

1568 – Battle of Langside: The forces of Mary, Queen of Scots, are defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, Earl of Moray, her half-brother. 

1787 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England, with eleven ships full of convicts (the "First Fleet") to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1846 – Mexican–American War: The United States declares war on Mexico― From history.com

1861 – American Civil War: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.


1861 – The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia.

1862 – The USS Planter, a steamer and gunship, steals through Confederate lines and is passed to the Union, by a southern slave, Robert Smalls, who later was officially appointed as captain, becoming the first black man to command a United States ship.


1864 – American Civil War ― Battle of Resaca: The battle begins with Union General Sherman fighting toward Atlanta.

1865 – American Civil War ― Battle of Palmito Ranch: In far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the Civil War ends with a Confederate victory.

1912 – The Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the Royal Air Force, is established in the United Kingdom.


1917 – Three children report the first apparition of Our Lady of Fátima in Fátima, Portugal.

1940 – World War II: Germany's conquest of France begins as the German army crosses the Meuse. Winston Churchill makes his "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.


1943 – World War II: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.

1954 – The anti-National Service Riots, by Chinese middle school students in Singapore, take place.

1958 – During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.



1958 – Ben Carlin becomes the first (and only) person to circumnavigate the world by amphibious vehicle, having traveled over 17,000 kilometres (11,000 mi) by sea and 62,000 kilometres (39,000 mi) by land during a ten-year journey.

1960 – Hundreds of University of California, Berkeley students congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Thirty-one students are arrested, and the Free Speech Movement is born.



1969 – Race riots, later known as the 13 May Incident, take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

1980 – An F3 tornado hits Kalamazoo County, Michigan. President Jimmy Carter declares it a federal disaster area.


1981 – Mehmet Ali Ağca attempts to assassinate Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square in Rome. The Pope is rushed to the Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic to undergo emergency surgery and survives.


1985 – Police release a bomb on MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia to end a stand-off, killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.

1989 – Large groups of students occupy Tiananmen Square and begin a hunger strike.

1995 – Alison Hargreaves, a 33-year-old British mother, becomes the first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas.


1996 – Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kill 600 people.



2005 – The Andijan massacre occurs in Uzbekistan.


2006 – São Paulo violence: A major rebellion occurs in several prisons in Brazil.

2011 – Two bombs explode in the Charsadda District of Pakistan killing 98 people and wounding 140 others.



2012 – 49 dismembered bodies are discovered by Mexican authorities on Mexican Federal Highway 40.

2014 – An explosion at an underground coal mine in south-western Turkey kills 301 miners.


2014 – Major floods in Southeast Europe kill at least 47 people.

2015 – An industrial fire in Valenzuela, Philippines killing 72 people.


BORN TODAY 

1883 – Georgios Papanikolaou, Greek-American pathologist, invented the pap smear (d. 1962)

1907 – Daphne du Maurier, English novelist and playwright (d. 1989)

1952 – Londa Schiebinger, American academic and author

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted.    

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