March 13 is the 72nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (73rd in leap years). There are 293 days remaining.

Events

• 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 University is named for clergyman John Harvard.
• 1781 - William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus.
• 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).
• 1900 - Boer Wars: 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
• 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 Kraków.
• 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.
• 1991 - The United States Justice Department announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1,000 million 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 Québec.
• 1996 - The Dunblane Massacre: in Dunblane, Scotland, 16 children and 1 adult teacher are shot dead by an spree killer who then commits suicide.
• 1997 - India's Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader.
• 2003 - Human evolution: The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old upright-walking human footprints have been found in Italy.

Births

• 1372 - Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans, brother of Charles VI of France (d. 1407)
• 1615 - Pope Innocent XII, (d. 1700)
• 1733 - Joseph Priestley, scientist, minister, (d. 1804)
• 1741 - Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, (d. 1790)
• 1763 - Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, French soldier, (d. 1815)
• 1764 - Earl Grey, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, obtainer of a popular bergamot tea recipe, (d. 1845)
• 1781 - Karl Friedrich Schinkel, master builder, (d. 1841)
• 1784 - Jean Moufot, French philosopher and mathematician (d. 1842)
• 1798 - Abigail Fillmore, First Lady of the United States, (d. 1853)
• 1855 - Percival Lowell, astronomer, (d. 1916)
• 1860 - Hugo Wolf, composer, (d. 1903)
• 1864 - Alexej von Jawlensky, Russian impressionist painter, (d. 1941)
• 1880 - Frank Thiess , writer, (d. 1977)
• 1884 - Oskar Loerke , lyricist, narrator and essayist, (d. 1941)
• 1884 - Sir Hugh Walpole, novelist, (d. 1941)
• 1900 - George Seferis, Nobel prize-winning poet, (d. 1971)
• 1908 - Walter Annenberg, publisher, philanthropist, (d. 2002)
• 1910 - Karl Gustav Ahlefeldt, Danish actor, (d. 1985)
• 1910 - Sammy Kaye, American musician (d. 1987)
• 1911 - L. Ron Hubbard, author, (d. 1986)
• 1913 - William Casey, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, (d. 1987)
• 1914 - Edward O'Hare, American pilot, (d. 1943)
• 1921 - Al Jaffee, American cartoonist
• 1926 - Raúl Alfonsín, President of Argentina
• 1929 - Peter Breck, American actor
• 1934 - Barry Hughart, fantasy author
• 1935 - Michael Walzer, philosopher
• 1935 - Leslie Parrish, American actress
• 1938 - Erma Franklin, singer (d. 2002)
• 1939 - Neil Sedaka, singer, songwriter
• 1942 - Dave Cutler, software engineer
• 1945 - Michael Martin Murphey, American country musician
• 1946 - Jonathan Netanyahu, Israeli soldier (d. 1976)
• 1947 - Beat Richner, Swiss pediatrician in Cambodia, cellist
• 1949 - Julia Migenes , soprano
• 1950 - William H. Macy, actor
• 1951 - Fred Berry, American actor, dancer (d. 2003)
• 1952 - Wolfgang Rihm, composer
• 1954 - The Baroness Amos, British politician, first black woman in the UK Cabinet
• 1956 - Dana Delany, actress
• 1960 - Adam Clayton, bassist for the rock band U2
• 1962 - Terence Blanchard , American jazz musician
• 1967 - Andrés Escobar, Colombian football player (d. 1994)
• 1971 - Annabeth Gish, American actress
• 1973 - David Draiman, musician, songwriter
• 1974 - Cillian Murphy, actor
• 1976 - Danny Masterson, American actor
• 1986 - Natalie and Nicole Albino, American musicians (Nina Sky)

Deaths

• 1569 - Louis I de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, French Huguenot general (b. 1530)
• 1619 - Richard Burbage, English actor (b. 1567)
• 1808 - King Christian VII of Denmark (b. 1749)
• 1842 - Henry Shrapnel, soldier, inventor (b. 1761)
• 1881 - Tsar Alexander II of Russia (b. 1818)
• 1884 - Leland Stanford, Jr., American railroad magnate, founder of Stanford University (b. 1868)
• 1901 - Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (b. 1833)
• 1906 - Susan B. Anthony, American women's suffrage activist (b. 1820)
• 1938 - Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Soviet politician and intellectual (b. 1888)
• 1938 - Clarence Darrow, American attorney (b. 1857)
• 1943 - Stephen Vincent Benét, American author (b. 1898)
• 1955 - King Tribhuvan of Nepal (b. 1906)
• 1964 - Kitty Genovese, American crime victim
• 1965 - Corrado Gini, statistician (b. 1884)
• 1965 - Fan S. Noli, Albanian bishop, poet and politician (b. 1882)
• 1972 - Tony Ray-Jones, British photographer (b. 1941)
• 1975 - Ivo Andrić, Nobel prize-winning Croatian writer (b. 1892)
• 1990 - Bruno Bettelheim, psychiatrist
• 1991 - Karl Münchinger, German conductor (b. 1915)
• 1995 - Leon Day, baseball player (b. 1916)
• 1996 - Krzysztof Kieslowski, film director (b. 1941)
• 1998 - Bill Reid, Canadian artist (b. 1920)
• 1998 - Hans von Ohain, German engineer
• 1999 - Garson Kanin, writer, director
• 2002 - Hans-Georg Gadamer, German philosopher
• 2004 - Franz König, Roman Catholic archbishop of Vienna

Holidays and observances

• Roman Catholic Church and Greek Orthodox Church - Feast day of Saint Nicephorus

External links

• BBC: On This Day

March 12 - March 14 - February 13 - April 13 -- listing of all days