On This Day — 13 April

2000s

2025

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

Rory McIlroy

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.

Bondi Junction stabbings

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2023

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

Jack Teixeira

2014

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

2014 Overland Park shootings

2013

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

Salam Fayyad

2013

Lion Air Flight 904 crashes on approach to Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, Indonesia, injuring 40 people.

Lion Air Flight 904

2009

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

Kamień Pomorski homeless hostel fire

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2006

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

United Front for Democratic Change

1900s

1997

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

Tiger Woods

1996

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

Mansouri attack

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.

United States Department of the Treasury

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1976

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

Lapua Cartridge Factory explosion

1975

Beirut bus massacre: A confrontation between Phalangist paramilitaries and PLO militia marks the start of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.

1975 Beirut bus massacre

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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.

Universal Postal Union

1972

Vietnam War: The Battle of An Lộc begins.

Vietnam War

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

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.

36th Academy Awards

1960

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

Transit (satellite navigation system)

1953

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

Central Intelligence Agency

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

1945

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

Nazi Germany

1945

World War II: Soviet and Bulgarian forces capture Vienna.

Soviet Union

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

1943

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

Jefferson Memorial

1941

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

Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact

1924

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

A.E.K. (sports club)

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. Approximately 1,500 are injured.

Jallianwala Bagh massacre

1909

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

31 March incident

1800s

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.

Colfax massacre

1870

The New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

1865

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

Raleigh, North Carolina

1861

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

American Civil War

1849

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

Lajos Kossuth

1829

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

Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829

Before 1800

1777

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

American Revolutionary War

1742

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

George Frideric Handel

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

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.

Samuel Argall