March 13

Events
Up to 1900
483 - St. Felix becomes Pope.
874 - The bones of Saint Nicephorus are interred in the Church of the Apostles, Constantinople.
1138 - Cardinal Gregory is elected anti-pope as Victor IV, succeeding Anacletus II.
1639 - Harvard College was named for clergyman John Harvard.
1781 - William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus.
1809 - Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden is deposed in a coup d'etat.
1848 - The March Revolution in Vienna begins.
1862 - American Civil War:the US federal government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.
1865 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America reluctantly agrees to the use of African American troops.
1881 - Alexander II of Russia is killed near his palace when a bomb is thrown at him. (Gregorian date: it was 1 March in the Julian calendar then in use in Russia.)
1884 - The siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins (ends on January 26, 1885).
1897 - San Diego State University founded.
1900 - Second Boer War: British forces occupy Bloemfontein, Orange Free State.
1900 - In France, length of a workday for women and children is limited to 11 hours by law.
1901 2000
1920 - The "Wolfgang Kapp Putsch" briefly ousts the Weimar Republic government from Berlin.
1921 - Mongolia, under Black Baron, declares its independence from China.
1925 - Scopes Trial: A law in Tennessee prohibits the teaching of evolution.
1933 - Great Depression: Banks in the United States begin to re-open after the Presidentially mandated "bank holiday".
1940 - Winter War ended.
1943 - World War II: In Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700.
1943 - Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Krakow.
1954 - Battle of Dien Bien Phu: Viet Minh forces attack the French.
1957 - The FBI arrests Jimmy Hoffa and charges him with bribery.
1964 - A young woman, Kitty Genovese, is murdered in front of multiple witnesses who all fail to help her, in an incident which shocks the world and prompts investigation into the Bystander effect.
1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.
1971 - In New York City, Rock group The Allman Brothers Band record a concert that will be released as their classic live album At Fillmore East
1979 - The New Jewel Movement, headed by Maurice Bishop, ousts Prime Minister Eric Gairy in a nearly bloodless coup d'etat in Grenada.
1988 - The Seikan Tunnel, the longest undersea tunnel in world, is opened, connecting Aomori and Hakodate in Japan.
1988 - I. King Jordan becomes the first Deaf president of Gallaudet University after the Deaf President Now demonstrations.
1990 - Ertha Pascal-Trouillot becomes the first female President of Haiti.
1991 - The United States Justice Department announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
1992 - In eastern Turkey, an earthquake registering 6.8 on the Richter scale kills over 500.
1993 - The Great Blizzard of 1993 strikes the eastern U.S., bringing record snowfall and other severe weather all the way from Cuba to Quebec.
1996 - The Dunblane Massacre: In Dunblane, Scotland, 16 children and 1 adult teacher are shot dead by a spree killer who then commits suicide.
1997 - India's Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader.
1997 - In Phoenix, Arizona, Arizona, the Phoenix Lights, one of the most widely witnessed UFO sightings, take place.
2000 - After 17 seasons in the NFL, Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino retires.
From 2001
2003 - Human evolution: The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old upright-walking human footprints have been found in Italy.
2005 - A Presidential election takes place in Kyrgyzstan. Controversy around this election leads to the removal of President Askar Akayev.
2012 - Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica announce that they are to stop publishing its print edition, in order to focus on its online edition.
2012 - 28 people are killed as a bus returning from a school trip back to Belgium crashes in a tunnel in Canton Valais, Switzerland.
2013 - cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina is elected Pope, choosing to be known as Pope Francis. He is the first Pope from Latin America as well as the first Jesuit Pope.
2015 - Iceland withdraws its application for European Union membership.
2016 - 17 people are killed in an armed attack on a hotel in the Ivory Coast.
2016 - 37 people are killed in bomb attack in Ankara, Turkey.
2017 - Nicola Sturgeon asks for permission to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence.
2018 - US President Donald Trump fires his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and nominates CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him.
2019 - A school shooting in Suzano, Sao Paulo, Brazil, kills 8 people.
2019 - A school collapse in Lagos, Nigeria, kills 8 people.
2019 - The House of Commons of the United Kingdom votes by a majority against a "No-Deal" Brexit.
Births
Up to 1900
1372 - Louis of Valois, Duke of Orleans, brother of Charles VI of France (d. 1407)
1593 - Georges de La Tour, French painter (d. 1652)
1615 - Pope Innocent XII (d. 1700)
1683 - John Theophilus Desaguliers, French-British politician (d. 1744)
1696 - Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, Marshal of France (d. 1788)
1700 - Michel Blavet, French flautist (d. 1768)
1720 - Charles Bonnet, Swiss naturalist and writer (d. 1793)
1733 - Joseph Priestley, English scientist (d. 1804)
1741 - Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1790)
1764 - Earl Grey, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1845)
1770 - Daniel Lambert, English man known for his obesity (d. 1809)
1781 - Karl Friedrich Schinkel, German architect (d. 1841)
1798 - Abigail Fillmore, First Lady of the United States (d. 1853)
1815 - James Curtis Hepburn, American physician and Christian missionary (d. 1911)
1825 - Hans Gude, Norwegian painter (d. 1903)
1829 - Richard Coke, 16th Governor of Texas (d. 1897)
1842 - Joseph Valentin Boussinesq, French mathematician and physicist (d. 1929)
1845 - Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, Polish linguist (d. 1929)
1855 - Percival Lowell, American astronomer (d. 1916)
1857 - B. H. Roberts, Mormon leader, historian and politician (d. 1935)
1860 - Hugo Wolf, Austrian composer (d. 1903)
1864 - Alexei von Jawlensky, Russian painter (d. 1941)
1870 - Albert Meyer, Swiss politician (d. 1953)
1874 - Ellery Clark, American athlete (d. 1949)
1883 - Enrico Toselli, Italian composer and pianist (d. 1926)
1884 - Hugh Walpole, English novelist (d. 1941)
1886 - Home Run Baker, American baseball player (d. 1963)
1888 - Paul Morand, French writer (d. 1976)
1890 - Fritz Busch, German conductor (d. 1951)
1895 - Luigi Cevenini, Italian footballer (d. 1968)
1897 - Yeghishe Charents, Armenian poet, writer and public activist (d. 1937)
1898 - Henry Hathaway, American movie director and producer (d. 1985)
1899 - Bela Guttman, Hungarian footballer (d. 1981)
1899 - John Hasbrouck van Vleck, American physicist (d. 1980)
1900 - Salote Tupou III, Queen of Tonga (d. 1965)
1900 - Giorgos Seferis, Greek poet (d. 1971)
1901 1950
1902 - Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Egyptian singer and composer (d. 1991)
1903 - Yasutaro Koide, Japanese supercentenarian (d. 2016)
1906 - Nguyen Van Thien, Vietnamese Roman Catholic bishop (d. 2012)
1907 - Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian and author (d. 1986)
1908 - Walter Annenberg, American philanthropist, editor and diplomat (d. 2002)
1910 - Karl Gustav Ahlefeldt, Danish actor (d. 1985)
1910 - Sammy Kaye, American saxophonist, bandleader and songwriter (d. 1987)
1910 - Kemal Tahir, Turkish novelist and intellectual (d. 1973)
1911 - L. Ron Hubbard, American founder of Scientology (d. 1986)
1913 - Sergey Mikhalkov, Russian writer (d. 2009)
1913 - William Casey, American CIA director (d. 1987)
1916 - Jacque Fresco, American futurist, writer and engineer (d. 2017)
1921 - Al Jaffee, American cartoonist
1921 - Gitta Sereny, Austrian-British biographer, historian and investigative journalist (d. 2012)
1923 - Dimitrios Ioannidis, Greek military officer (d. 2010)
1923 - William F. Bolger, 65th Postmaster General of the United States (d. 1989)
1925 - Roy Haynes, American jazz drummer
1926 - Carlos Roberto Reina, President of Honduras (d. 2003)
1927 - Ivan Irwin, American-Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2019)
1928 - Douglas Rain, Canadian actor (d. 2018)
1929 - Zbigniew Messner, Prime Minister of Poland (d. 2014)
1929 - Bunny Yeager, American model and photographer (d. 2014)
1929 - Peter Breck, American actor (d. 2012)
1929 - Joseph Mascolo, American musician and actor (d. 2016)
1930 - Gunther Uecker, German painter
1931 - Wolfgang Kohlhaase, German screenwriter and movie director
1933 - Pee Wee Gaskins, American serial killer (d. 1991)
1933 - Mahdi Elmandjra, Moroccan economist and futurologist (d. 2014)
1934 - Mario David, Italian footballer (d. 2005)
1934 - Mario Missiroli, Italian director (d. 2014)
1935 - David Nobbs, English comedy writer (d. 2015)
1936 - Jose Mojica Marins, Brazilian filmmaker and actor
1936 - Michael Checkland, former Director-General of the BBC
1937 - Vladimir Makanin, Russian writer (d. 2017)
1938 - Erma Franklin, American singer (d. 2002)
1938 - Tochinoumi Teruyoshi, Japanese sumo wrestler
1939 - Yoshinobu Ishii, Japanese footballer (d. 2018)
1939 - Neil Sedaka, American singer-songwriter
1940 - Christopher Gable, British dancer, choreographer and actor (d. 1998)
1940 - Jacqueline Sassard, French actress
1941 - John Clark, Scottish footballer
1941 - Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet (d. 2008)
1942 - Scatman John, American singer (d. 1999)
1942 - Geoffrey Hayes, English actor and screenwriter (d. 2018)
1942 - Dave Cutler, American computer scientist and engineer
1943 - Giancarlo De Sisti, Italian footballer
1943 - Andre Techine, French director and songwriter
1945 - Anatoly Fomenko, Russian mathematician
1946 - Yonatan Netanyahu, Israeli soldier (d. 1976)
1947 - Lesley Collier, English ballerina and educator
1949 - Sian Elias, New Zealand judge, 12th Chief Justice of New Zealand
1950 - William H. Macy, American actor
1951 1975
1952 - Wolfgang Rihm, German composer and essayist
1953 - Deborah Raffin, American actress (d. 2012)
1953 - Ridley Pearson, American writer
1954 - Valerie Amos, Baroness Amos, British politician and diplomat
1955 - Bruno Conti, Italian footballer
1955 - Olga Rukavishnikova, Russian athlete
1956 - Dana Delany, American actress
1957 - John Hoeven, 31st Governor of North Dakota
1958 - Linda Robson, English actress
1959 - Kathy Hilton, American socialite
1960 - Adam Clayton, Irish bassist (U2)
1960 - Yuri Andrukhovych, Ukrainian writer, poet and political essayist
1960 - Jorge Sampaoli, Argentine footballer and manager
1961 - Sebastiano Nela, Italian footballer
1962 - Terence Blanchard, American trumpeter and composer
1967 - Andres Escobar, Colombian footballer (d. 1994)
1969 - Luca Bucci, Italian footballer
1971 - Annabeth Gish, American actress
1971 - Carme Chacon, Spanish politician (d. 2017)
1973 - Edgar Davids, Dutch footballer
1973 - David Draiman, American musician
1974 - Thomas Enqvist, Swedish tennis player
From 1976
1977 - Momo Sylla, Guinean footballer
1979 - Spanky G, American musician (Bloodhound Gang)
1979 - Johan Santana, Venezuelan baseball player
1979 - Cedric van Branteghem, Belgian athlete
1980 - Sara Bergmark Elfgren, Swedish writer
1980 - Caron Butler, American basketball player
1980 - Molly Stanton, American actress
1980 - Flavia Cacace, Italian dancer
1981 - Stephen Maguire, Scottish snooker player
1981 - April Matson, American actress and singer
1982 - Jeremy Curl, English explorer, author and photographer
1982 - Gisela Mota Ocampo, Mexican politician (d. 2016)
1985 - Ben Lowe, Australian rugby player
1985 - Naughty Boy, English DJ and producer
1986 - Shunsuke Daito, Japanese actor
1987 - Marco Andretti, American racing driver
1987 - Andreas Beck, German footballer
1989 - Holger Badstuber, German footballer
1989 - Marko Marin, German footballer
1989 - Peaches Geldof, British television personality (d. 2014)
1989 - Harry Helling, British actor
1991 - Kim Eli, South Korean singer (U-KISS)
1991 - Le Quang Liem, Vietnamese chess player
1991 - Tristan Thompson, Canadian basketball player
1991 - Luan Santana, Brazilian singer and composer
1992 - Lucy Fry, Australian actress
1992 - Kaya Scodelario, British actress
1994 - Gerard Deulofeu, Spanish footballer
1995 - Mikaela Shiffrin, American skier
Deaths
Up to 1900
600 - Leander of Seville, Spanish bishop (b. 534)
1202 - Mieszko III the Old, Duke of Greater Poland (b. 1126)
1395 - John Barbour, Scottish priest and poet (b. 1320)
1516 - King Ladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary (b. 1456)
1569 - Louis, Prince of Conde (b. 1530)
1767 - Maria Josepha of Saxony, mother of Louis XVI of France (b. 1731)
1773 - Philibert Commerson, French historian and explorer (b. 1727)
1808 - King Christian VII of Denmark (b. 1749)
1842 - Henry Shrapnel, English soldier and inventor (b. 1761)
1854 - Jean-Baptiste Villele, Prime Minister of France (b. 1773)
1873 - David Swinson Maynard, founder of Seattle (b. 1808)
1879 - Adolf Anderssen, German chess player (b. 1818)
1881 - Tsar Alexander II of Russia (b. 1818)
1901 2000
1901 - Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (b. 1833)
1906 - Susan B. Anthony, American suffragette (b. 1820)
1913 - Ernst Georg Ravenstein, German-English geographer and cartographer (b. 1834)
1914 - Hakeem Noord-ud-Din, Muslim scholar
1918 - Cesar Cui, Russian composer (b. 1835)
1936 - Francis Bell, 20th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1851)
1938 - Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Russian politician and intellectual (b. 1888)
1938 - Clarence Darrow, American attorney (b. 1857)
1938 - Carlo Minoretti, Italian cardinal (b. 1861)
1949 - Henri Giraud, French general (b. 1879)
1955 - King Tribhuvan of Nepal (b. 1906)
1964 - Kitty Genovese, American murder victim (b. 1935)
1965 - Fan S. Noli, 14th Prime Minister of Albania (b. 1882)
1975 - Ivo Andric, Serbo-Croatian writer (b. 1892)
1987 - Bernhard Grzimek, German zoologist, movie maker and writer (b. 1909)
1990 - Bruno Bettelheim, Austrian-American child psychologist (b. 1903)
1990 - Karl Munchinger, German conductor (b. 1915)
1995 - Odette Hallowes, French nurse and spy (b. 1912)
1996 - Krzysztof Kieslowski, Polish movie director (b. 1941)
1998 - Judge Dread, English singer-songwriter (b. 1911)
1998 - Hans von Ohain, German-American physicist and engineer (b. 1911)
1999 - Garson Kanin, American playwright and screenwriter (b. 1912)
From 2001
2001 - Encarnacion Alzona, Filipino historian and educator (b. 1895)
2002 - Hans-Georg Gadamer, German philosopher (b. 1900)
2004 - Vilayat Khan, Indian sitar player and composer (b. 1928)
2006 - Jimmy Johnstone, Scottish footballer (b. 1944)
2006 - Maureen Stapleton, American actress (b. 1925)
2006 - Robert C. Baker, inventor of the Chicken Nugget (b. 1921)
2009 - Andrew Martin, American professional wrestler (b. 1975)
2010 - He Pingping, smallest man in the world with the ability to walk (b. 1988)
2011 - Owsley Stanley, LSD supplier (b. 1935)
2012 - Michel Duchaussoy, French actor (b. 1938)
2012 - Jacques Villiers, French engineer (b. 1924)
2013 - Tore Lokoloko, 2nd Governor-General of Papua New Guinea (b. 1930)
2013 - Malachi Throne, American actor (b. 1928)
2014 - Reubin Askew, 37th Governor of Florida (b. 1937)
2014 - Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, 3rd President of Sierra Leone (b. 1932)
2014 - Icchokas Mera, Lithuanian writer (b. 1934)
2015 - Daevid Allen, Australian musician (b. 1938)
2015 - Irwin Hasen, American cartoonist and comic artist (b. 1918)
2015 - Al Rosen, American baseball player (b. 1924)
2016 - Adrienne Corri, British actress (b. 1930)
2016 - Martin Olav Sabo, American politician (b. 1938)
2016 - Hilary Putnam, American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist (b. 1926)
2017 - Adib Boroumand, Iranian poet and politician (b. 1924)
2017 - Kika de la Garza, American politician (b. 1927)
2017 - Richard, 6th Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, German nobleman (b. 1934)
2017 - Amy Krouse Rosenthal, American author and film director (b. 1965)
2017 - Ed Whitlock, English-Canadian long-distance runner (b. 1931)
2017 - Hiroto Muraoka, Japanese footballer (b. 1931)
2017 - Henri Cueco, French painter and writer (b. 1929)
2017 - Morton Deutsch, American social psychologist (b. 1920)
2017 - Andre Jagendorf, American plant biologist (b. 1926)
2017 - Sarah Jimenez, Mexican artist (b. 1927)
2017 - Richard H. Solomon, American diplomat (b. 1939)
2018 - T. Berry Brazelton, American paediatrician and author (b. 1918)
2018 - Bebeto de Freitas, Brazilian volleyball coach and football manager (b. 1950)
2018 - Jens Nilsson, Swedish politician (b. 1948)
2018 - Leonid Kvinikhidze, Russian screenwriter and director (b. 1937)
2018 - Gordon Walgren, American politician and convicted fraudster (b. 1933)
2019 - Frank Cali, American crime boss (b. 1965)
2019 - Harry Hughes, American politician, 57th Governor of Maryland (b. 1926)
2019 - Ghazali Jaafar, Filipino militant and politician (b. 1943)
2019 - Andrea Pollack, German swimmer (b. 1961)
2019 - Leroy Stanton, American baseball player (b. 1946)
Days of the year