Historical Events on Sunday, 13th April

13/04/2025

Rory McIlroy wins the Masters Tournament, becoming just the sixth person to complete the Grand Slam in golf.

Rory Daniel McIlroy is a Northern Irish professional golfer who plays on the European Tour and the PGA Tour. He is a former world number one in the Official World Golf Ranking and has spent over 100 weeks in that position during his career. A five-time major champion, he is the sixth man to complete a modern career grand slam. He is the first European to achieve the feat.

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13/04/2024

Six people and the perpetrator are killed and twelve others injured in a mass stabbing at Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre in Sydney, Australia.

On 13 April 2024, a mass stabbing took place at the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Forty-year-old Joel Cauchi killed six people and injured twelve, including a nine-month-old infant. Cauchi was later fatally shot by a NSW Police Inspector after he ran at her with a knife in hand.

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13/04/2023

The house of Jack Teixeira is raided in an investigation into leaked Pentagon documents; he is arrested on the same day.

Jack Douglas Teixeira is an American former airman in the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. In April 2023, following an investigation into the removal and disclosure of hundreds of classified Pentagon documents, Teixeira was arrested by FBI agents and charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. In March 2024, Teixeira pleaded guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.

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13/04/2014

Three people are killed in a shooting in Overland Park, Kansas.

Two shootings occurred on April 13, 2014, at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community, both located in Overland Park, Kansas in the United States. A total of three people were killed in the shootings, two of whom were shot at the community center and one shot at the retirement community. The gunman, 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. of Aurora, Missouri, originally from North Carolina, was arrested during the attack and was subsequently tried, convicted of murder and other crimes, and sentenced to death. Miller, a former Klansman, neo-Nazi and former political candidate, died in prison in 2021 while awaiting execution.

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13/04/2013

Salam Fayyad resigns as Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority following an ongoing dispute with the President Mahmoud Abbas.

Salam Fayyad is a Palestinian politician and economist who served as the first prime minister of Palestine from January 2013 until his resignation in June of that same year. He was previously the fourth prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority from 2007 until the post was replaced in 2013. He was minister of finance from June to November 2005 and from March 2007 to May 2012.

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13/04/2009

A fire destroys a homeless hostel and kills at least 22 people in Kamień Pomorski, Poland.

The Kamień Pomorski homeless hostel fire occurred in north-western Poland on 13 April 2009. The fire occurred during the night at a three-story homeless hostel in Kamień Pomorski. Twenty-three people, including 13 children, were pronounced dead, with a further 20 sustaining an injury of some sort. It was Poland's deadliest fire since a conflagration destroyed a home for the mentally ill in Górna Grupa in 1980 claiming the lives of 55 victims.

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13/04/2006

The United Front for Democratic Change's attack on the Chadian capital of N'Djamena is repelled by the Chadian army

The United Front for Democratic Change was a Chadian rebel alliance, made up of eight individual rebel groups, all with the goals of overthrowing the government of Chadian president Idriss Déby. It is now part of the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development. UFDC was founded between 26 and 28 December 2005 in Modeina in eastern Chad. FUC's "president" is Mahamat Nour Abdelkerim, the former leader of the Rally for Democracy and Liberty rebel group, "first vice president" Hassan Salleh Algadam, "second vice president" Abakar Tollimi, and "secretary-general" Abdelwahit About. On 18 December the RDL and another allied rebel group, Platform for Change, Unity and Democracy, attacked the city of Adré. The attack was repulsed by the Chadian military, and the Chadian government accused the Sudanese government of supporting the rebels, which Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir denies. Chad declared a "state of belligerance" with Sudan on 23 December 2005, resulting in the Chad-Sudan Conflict. The result was the Tripoli Agreement.

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13/04/1997

Tiger Woods becomes the youngest golfer to win the Masters Tournament.

Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records. Woods is widely regarded as one of the greatest golfers of all time and is one of the most famous athletes in modern history. He is an inductee of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

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13/04/1996

Two women and four children are killed after Israeli helicopter fired rockets at an ambulance in Mansouri, Lebanon.

The Mansouri attack occurred on 13 April 1996, when an Israel Defence Forces helicopter attacked an ambulance in Mansouri, a village in Southern Lebanon, killing two women and four children.

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13/04/1976

The United States Treasury Department reintroduces the two-dollar bill as a Federal Reserve Note on Thomas Jefferson's 233rd birthday as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.

The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current U.S. government departments. The treasury executes currency circulation in the domestic fiscal system, collects all federal taxes through the Internal Revenue Service, manages U.S. government debt, licenses and supervises banks and thrift institutions, and advises the legislative and executive branches on fiscal policy.

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Forty workers die in the Lapua Cartridge Factory explosion, the deadliest industrial accident in modern Finnish history.

The Lapua Cartridge Factory explosion was an industrial disaster in an ammunition factory in Lapua, Finland on 13 April 1976. 40 workers were killed and 60 people injured. This was Finland's worst industrial disaster.

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13/04/1975

An attack by the Phalangist resistance kills 26 militia members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, marking the start of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.

The 1975 Beirut bus massacre, also known as the Ain el-Rammaneh incident and Black Sunday, was the collective name given to a short series of armed clashes involving Phalangist and Palestinian elements in the streets of central Beirut, which is commonly presented as the spark that set off the Lebanese Civil War in the mid-1970s.

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13/04/1972

The Universal Postal Union decides to recognize the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate Chinese representative, effectively expelling the Republic of China administering Taiwan.

The Universal Postal Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations and facilitates a uniform worldwide postal system. It has 192 member states and is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland.

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Vietnam War: The Battle of An Lộc begins.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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13/04/1970

At 10:08 PM EST an oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 Service Module explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the Apollo command and service module (codenamed "Odyssey") while en route to the Moon.

Oxygen is a chemical element; it has the symbol O and its atomic number is 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table. It is highly reactive, a nonmetal, and a potent oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as well as with other compounds. Oxygen is the most abundant element in Earth's crust, making up almost half of the Earth's crust in the form of various oxides such as water, carbon dioxide, iron oxides, and silicates. It is also the third-most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium.

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13/04/1964

At the Academy Awards, Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American man to win the Best Actor award for the 1963 film Lilies of the Field.

The 36th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1963, were held on April 13, 1964, hosted by Jack Lemmon at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California. This ceremony introduced the category for Best Sound Effects, with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World being the first film to win the award.

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13/04/1960

The United States launches Transit 1-B, the world's first satellite navigation system.

The Transit system, also known as NAVSAT or NNSS, was the first satellite navigation system to be used operationally. The radio navigation system was primarily used by the U.S. Navy to provide accurate location information to its Polaris ballistic missile submarines, and it was also used as a navigation system by the Navy's surface ships, as well as for hydrographic survey and geodetic surveying. Transit provided continuous navigation satellite service from 1964, initially for Polaris submarines and later for civilian use as well. In the Project DAMP Program, the missile tracking ship USAS American Mariner also used data from the satellite for precise ship's location information prior to positioning its tracking radars.

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13/04/1953

CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind-control program Project MKUltra.

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the United States federal government tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and conducting covert operations. The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, and is sometimes metonymously called "Langley". A major member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA has reported to the director of national intelligence since 2004, and is focused on providing intelligence for the president and the Cabinet, though it also provides intelligence for a variety of other entities including the United States Armed Forces and foreign allies.

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13/04/1948

In an ambush, 78 Jewish doctors, nurses and medical students from Hadassah Hospital, and a British soldier, are massacred by Arabs in Sheikh Jarrah. This event came to be known as the Hadassah medical convoy massacre.

Hadassah Medical Center is an Israeli medical organization established in 1934 that operates two university hospitals in Jerusalem as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Its declared mission is to extend a "hand to all, without regard for race, religion or ethnic origin."

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13/04/1945

World War II: German troops kill more than 1,000 political and military prisoners in Gardelegen, Germany.

Nazi Germany, officially the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945, after 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin, ending World War II in Europe.

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World War II: Soviet and Bulgarian forces capture Vienna.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, largest by area, and bordered twelve countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

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13/04/1943

World War II: The discovery of mass graves of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government-in-exile in London and the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of President Thomas Jefferson's birth.

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial is a national memorial in Washington, D.C., built in honor of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the nation's third president. Built between 1939 and 1943, the memorial features multiple quotes from Jefferson intended to capture his ideology and philosophy, known as Jeffersonian democracy. Jefferson was widely considered among the most influential political minds of his era and one of the most consequential intellectual forces behind both the American Revolution and the American Enlightenment.

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13/04/1941

A pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed.

The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact , also known as the Japanese–Soviet Non-aggression Pact , was a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan signed on April 13, 1941, two years after the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese Border War. The agreement meant that for most of World War II, the two nations fought against each other's allies but not against each other. In 1945, late in the war, the Soviets scrapped the pact and joined the Allied campaign against Japan.

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13/04/1924

A.E.K., a major Greek multi-sport club, is established in Athens by Greek refugees from Constantinople.

A.E.K. is the most successful Greek multi-sport club, based in Nea Filadelfeia, Athens, Attica. The club is more commonly known in European competitions as A.E.K. Athens.

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13/04/1919

Jallianwala Bagh massacre: British Indian Army troops led by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer kill approximately 379–1,000 unarmed demonstrators including men and women in Amritsar, India; and approximately 1,500 injured.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919. A large crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, British India, during the annual Baisakhi fair to protest against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of pro-Indian independence activists Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal. In response to the public gathering, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer surrounded the people with Gurkhas of Nepalese origin and Sikh infantrymen of the British Indian Army. The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, Dyer ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as the protestors tried to flee. The troops kept on firing until their ammunition was low and they were ordered to stop. Estimates of those killed vary from 379 to 1,500 or more people; over 1,200 others were injured, of whom 192 sustained serious injury. Britain has never formally apologised for the massacre, but expressed deep "regret" in 2019.

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13/04/1909

The 31 March Incident leads to the overthrow of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

The 31 March incident was an uprising in the Ottoman Empire in April 1909, during the Second Constitutional Era. The incident broke out during the night of 30–31 Mart 1325 in Rumi calendar, thus named after 31 March where March is the equivalent to Rumi month Mart. Occurring soon after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, in which the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) had successfully restored the Constitution and ended the absolute rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, it is sometimes referred to as an attempted countercoup or counterrevolution. It consisted of a general uprising against the CUP within Istanbul, largely led by reactionary groups, particularly Islamists opposed to the secularising influence of the CUP and supporters of absolutism, although liberal opponents of the CUP within the Liberty Party also played a lesser role. Eleven days later the uprising was suppressed and the former government restored when elements of the Ottoman Army sympathetic to the CUP formed an impromptu military force known as the Action Army. Upon entering Istanbul on 24 April Sultan Abdul Hamid II, accused by the CUP of complicity in the uprising, was deposed and the Ottoman National Assembly elevated his half-brother, Mehmed V, to the throne. Mahmud Shevket Pasha, the military general who had organised and led the Action Army, became the most influential figure in the restored constitutional system until his assassination in 1913.

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13/04/1873

The Colfax massacre: More than 60 to 150 black men are murdered in Colfax, Louisiana, while surrendering to a mob of former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Colfax massacre, sometimes referred to as the Colfax riot, occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, the parish seat of Grant Parish. An estimated 62–153 black men were murdered while surrendering to a mob of former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan.

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13/04/1870

The New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the fourth-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5,727,258 visitors in fiscal year 2025, it was the most-visited museum in the United States and the fourth-most visited art museum in the world.

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13/04/1865

American Civil War: Raleigh, North Carolina is occupied by Union forces.

Raleigh is the capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the second-most populous city in the state, tenth most populous city in the Southeast, the largest city in the Research Triangle area, and the 39th-most populous city in the U.S. Known as the "City of Oaks" for its oak-lined streets, Raleigh covers 148.54 square miles (384.7 km2) and had a population of 467,665 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Wake County and is named after Sir Walter Raleigh, who founded the lost Roanoke Colony.

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13/04/1861

American Civil War: Union forces surrender Fort Sumter to Confederate forces.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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13/04/1849

Lajos Kossuth presents the Hungarian Declaration of Independence in a closed session of the National Assembly.

Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva was a Hungarian nobleman, lawyer, journalist, politician, statesman, revolutionist and governor-president of the Hungarian State during the war of independence of 1848–1849.

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13/04/1829

The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 gives Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom the right to vote and to sit in Parliament.

The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, also known as the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that removed the sacramental tests that barred Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from Parliament and from higher offices of the judiciary and state. It was the high point of a fifty-year process of Catholic emancipation which had offered Catholics successive measures of "relief" from the anti-Catholic civil and political disabilities imposed by Penal Laws in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

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13/04/1777

American Revolutionary War: American forces are ambushed and defeated in the Battle of Bound Brook, New Jersey.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

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13/04/1742

George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah makes its world premiere in Dublin, Ireland.

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti.

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13/04/1699

The Sikh religion is formalised as the Khalsa – the brotherhood of Warrior-Saints – by Guru Gobind Singh in northern India, in accordance with the Nanakshahi calendar.

Sikhs are followers of Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the teachings of Guru Nanak. The term Sikh has its origin in the Sanskrit word śiṣya, meaning 'seeker', 'disciple' or 'student'.

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13/04/1613

Samuel Argall, having captured Pocahontas in Passapatanzy, Virginia, sets off with her to Jamestown with the intention of exchanging her for English prisoners held by her father.

Sir Samuel Argall was an English sea captain, navigator, and Deputy-Governour of Virginia, an English colony.

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13/04/1612

Samurai Miyamoto Musashi defeats Sasaki Kojirō in a duel at Funajima island.

Miyamoto Musashi was a Japanese swordsman, strategist, artist, and writer who became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 62 duels. Musashi is considered a kensei of Japan. He was the founder of the Niten Ichi-ryū style of swordsmanship. In his final years, Musashi authored The Book of Five Rings and Dokkōdō.

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13/04/1455

Thirteen Years' War: the beginning of the Battle for Kneiphof.

The Thirteen Years' War, also called the War of the Cities, was a conflict fought in 1454–1466 between the Prussian Confederation, allied with the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, and the State of the Teutonic Order.

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13/04/1204

Constantinople falls to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire.

Constantinople was a historical city located on the Bosporus, which served as the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman empires between its consecration in 330 and the formal abolition of the Ottoman sultanate in 1922. Constantinople was founded in 324, initially as New Rome, during the reign of Constantine the Great on the site of the existing settlement of Byzantium and in 330 became the capital of the Roman Empire. Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century, Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). In the aftermath of the Turkish War of Independence, the Turkish capital moved to Ankara. The city was officially renamed Istanbul on 28 March 1930. As of December 2025, it is the most populous city in Europe, with a population of more than 16 million residents, straddling the Bosporus Strait and lying in both Europe and Asia, and is the financial beneficiary of Turkey.

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13/04/1175

Saladin routs his Muslim opponents, the Zengids, in the battle of the Horns of Hama, consolidating his control over Syria except for Aleppo.

Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, commonly known as Saladin, was a Kurdish commander and political leader. He was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.

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13/04/1111

Henry V, King of Germany, is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

Henry V was King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor, as the fourth and last ruler of the Salian dynasty. He was made co-ruler by his father, Henry IV, in 1098.

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