History of the Day for:
May 13
- 1568: Mary, Queen of Scots was defeated by the English at the battle of Langside in Glasgow.
- 1607: Captain John Smith and a party of soldiers landed in Virginia at Jamestown and established the first permanent British settlement in the New World.
- 1637: Cardinal Richelieu of France created the table knife.
- 1787: The first fleet of ships carrying convicts to the new penal colony of Australia left England.
- 1830: The Republic of Ecuador was founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president.
- 1835: The first foreign embassy in Hawaii was established.
- 1846: Congress formally declared war on Mexico over California, although fighting had begun days earlier.
- 1865: The last engagement of the Civil War occurred in Brownsville, Texas.
- 1888: Brazil's parliament abolished slavery.
- 1913: Igor Sikorsky of Russia built the first four-engine airplane.
- 1916: Native American Day was first observed.
- 1918: The first U.S. airmail stamps, showing a picture of an airplane, were introduced.
- 1923: Willa Carter won the Pulitzer prize for "One of Ours."
- 1927: "Black Friday" occurred in Germany, signaling the collapse of its economic structure.
- 1930: In the only known fatality attributed to hail, a farmer was killed in Lubbock, Texas.
- 1940: After setting up Britain's wartime coalition, Winston Churchill told parliament he could offer "... nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
- 1941: Martin Bormann was named head of the Nazi Party Chancellery in Germany, following Rudolf Hess's mysterious flight to Scotland.
- 1942: The helicopter made its first cross-country flight.
- 1943: The Italian Commander-in-Chief in Tunisia surrendered, with the Allies holding 250,000 war prisoners.
- 1947: The Senate approved the Taft-Hartley Act limiting the power of unions.
- 1949: The first British-produced jet bomber, the Canberra, made its first test flight.
- 1950: Diner's Club issued its first credit cards.
- 1958: Jordan and Iraq formed the Arab Federation.
- 1965: Several Arab nations broke ties with West Germany after it established diplomatic relations with Israel.
- 1966: Federal education funding was denied to 12 school districts in the South because of violations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
- 1981: Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded driving through a crowd of 20,000 in St. Peter's Square in Rome.
- 1982: Braniff International Corp. filed for bankruptcy becoming the first major U.S. airline to go bankrupt.
- 1985: A confrontation between Philadelphia police and the group MOVE ended as police dropped an explosive onto the group's headquarters, killing 11 in the ensuing fire.
- 1991: Apple released Macintosh System 7.0.
- 1992: Three astronauts simultaneously walked in space for the first time, from the U.S. shuttle Endeavour, in a walk lasting 8 hours, 29 minutes.
- 1994: Johnny Carson makes his last television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman.
- 1996: Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kill 600 people.
- 1998: Race riots break out in Jakarta, Indonesia, where shops owned by Indonesians of Chinese descent are looted and women raped.
- 1998: India carries out two nuclear tests at Pokhran, following the three conducted on May 11. The United States and Japan impose economic sanctions on India.
- 2000: In Enschede, the Netherlands, a fireworks factory explodes, killing 22 people, wounding 950, and resulting in approximately €450 million in damage.
- 2005: The Andijan Massacre occurs in Uzbekistan.
- 2006: 2006 São Paulo violence: a major rebellion occurs in several prisons in Brazil.
- 2007: Construction of the Calafat-Vidin Bridge between Romania and Bulgaria begins.