On This Day in History - May 13

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

 May 13, 1846: President Polk declares war on Mexico

On May 13, 1846, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly votes in favor of President James K. Polk's request to declare war on Mexico in a dispute over Texas.

Under the threat of war, the United States had refrained from annexing Texas after the latter won independence from Mexico in 1836.  But in 1844, President John Tyler restarted negotiations with the Republic of Texas, culminating with a Treaty of Annexation.

The treaty was defeated by a wide margin in the Senate because it would upset the slave state/free state balance between North and South and risked war with Mexico, which had broken off relations with the United States. But shortly before leaving office and with the support of President-elect Polk, Tyler managed to get the joint resolution passed on March 1, 1845. Texas was admitted to the union on December 29.

While Mexico didn't follow through with its threat to declare war, relations between the two nations remained tense over border disputes, and in July 1845, President Polk ordered troops into disputed lands that lay between the Neuces and Rio Grande rivers. In November, Polk sent the diplomat John Slidell to Mexico to seek boundary adjustments in return for the U.S. government's settlement of the claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico and also to make an offer to purchase California and New Mexico. After the mission failed, the U.S. army under Gen. Zachary Taylor advanced to the mouth of the Rio Grande, the river that the state of Texas claimed as its southern boundary. Mexico, claiming that the boundary was the Nueces River to the northeast of the Rio Grande, considered the advance of Taylor's army an act of aggression and in April 1846 sent troops across the Rio Grande. Polk, in turn, declared the Mexican advance to be an invasion of U.S. soil, and on May 11, 1846, asked Congress to declare war on Mexico, which it did two days later.

After nearly two years of fighting, peace was established by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848. The Rio Grande was made the southern boundary of Texas, and California and New Mexico were ceded to the United States. In return, the United States paid Mexico the sum of $15 million and agreed to settle all claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico.













May 13, 1940: Churchill announces: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."  

On this day in 1940, as Winston Churchill takes the helm as Great Britain's new prime minister, he assures Parliament that his new policy will consist of nothing less than "to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime."  

Emphasizing that Britain's aim was simply "victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory however long and hard the road may be." That very evening, Churchill was informed that Britain would need 60 fighter squadrons to defend British soil against German attack. It had 39.  

Within a couple of weeks, the conservative, anti-Socialist Churchill, in an effort to make his rally cry of victory a reality, proceeded to place all "persons, their services, and their property at the disposal of the Crown," thereby granting the government the most all-encompassing emergency powers in modern British history.















May 13, 1981: Pope John Paul II is shot

Pope John Paul II is shot and wounded at St. Peter's Square in Rome, Italy. Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca, an escaped fugitive already convicted of a previous murder, fired several shots at the religious leader, two of which wounded nearby tourists. Agca was immediately captured.  

Agca claimed that he had planned to go to England to kill the king but couldn't because it turned out there was only a queen and "Turks don't shoot women." He also claimed to have Palestinian connections, although the PLO quickly denied any involvement. Detectives believed that his confession had been coached in order to throw investigators offtrack.  

When his trial began on July 20, 1981, Agca tried an unlikely legal gambit: He maintained that Italy did not have the right to prosecute him since the crime occurred at the Vatican. Although he threatened to go on a hunger strike if his trial wasn't shifted to a Vatican court, his request was denied and he was found guilty two days later. He was sentenced to life in prison but released in 2010 due to several amnesties and changes to the penal code.  

Many people argued that the very unusual and short trial must have been an effort to cover up evidence of a conspiracy. In fact, Italian authorities had their own suspicions but did not want to disclose them in a highly publicized trial. Instead, they conducted a relatively quiet investigation into the connection between Agca and Bulgaria's KGB-connected intelligence agency.  

The motive behind an alleged Soviet-inspired assassination must be viewed in the context of the Cold War in 1981. Pope John Paul II was Polish-born and openly supportive of the democratic movement in that country. His visit to Poland in 1979 worried the Kremlin, which saw its hold on Eastern Europe in danger.  

Although the exact extent of the conspiracy remains unknown today, Agca reportedly met with Bulgarian spies Sergei Antonov, Zhelio Vassilev, Todor Aivazov, and Bekir Celenk in Rome about assassinating Lech Walesa, the Polish labor union leader. However, this plan was abandoned when Agca was offered $1.25 million to kill the pope.


















May 13, 1607: Jamestown founded

Some 100 English colonists arrive along the west bank of the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. Dispatched from England by the London Company, the colonists had sailed across the Atlantic aboard the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery.  

Upon landing at Jamestown, the first colonial council was held by seven settlers whose names had been chosen and placed in a sealed box by King James I. The council, which included Captain John Smith, an English adventurer, chose Edward Wingfield as its first president. After only two weeks, Jamestown came under attack from warriors from the local Algonquian Native American confederacy, but the Indians were repulsed by the armed settlers. In December of the same year, John Smith and two other colonists were captured by Algonquians while searching for provisions in the Virginia wilderness. His companions were killed, but he was spared, according to a later account by Smith, because of the intercession of Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan's daughter.  

During the next two years, disease, starvation, and more Native American attacks wiped out most of the colony, but the London Company continually sent more settlers and supplies. The severe winter of 1609 to 1610, which the colonists referred to as the "starving time," killed most of the Jamestown colonists, leading the survivors to plan a return to England in the spring. However, on June 10, Thomas West De La Warr, the newly appointed governor of Virginia, arrived with supplies and convinced the settlers to remain at Jamestown. In 1612, John Rolfe cultivated the first tobacco at Jamestown, introducing a successful source of livelihood. On April 5, 1614, Rolfe married Pocahontas, thus assuring a temporary peace with Chief Powhatan.  

The death of Powhatan in 1618 brought about a resumption of conflict with the Algonquians, including an attack led by Chief Opechancanough in 1622 that nearly wiped out the settlement. The English engaged in violent reprisals against the Algonquians, but there was no further large-scale fighting until 1644, when Opechancanough led his last uprising and was captured and executed at Jamestown. In 1646, the Algonquian Confederacy agreed to give up much of its territory to the rapidly expanding colony, and, beginning in 1665, its chiefs were appointed by the governor of Virginia.

















May 13, 1898: Edison sues over new motion-picture technology   

On this day in 1898, Thomas Edison sues the American Mutoscope Company, claiming that the studio has infringed on his patent for the Kinetograph movie camera.  

Thomas Edison, born in Ohio in 1847, had already invented the phonograph, the light bulb and other important technologies by 1887, when he moved his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory to Orange, New Jersey. In Orange, Edison entrusted his assistant, W.L.K. Dickson, with the development of a new machine that could capture moving images. Dickson designed the Kinetograph, a camera that used celluloid film advanced by a sprocket that fit into square perforations running along the film, as well as the Kinetoscope, which projected moving images in a single-viewer peep-show format. Edison first publicly demonstrated the machine in 1891.  

Edison realized the financial drawbacks of the peep-show format and contracted rights to a camera developed by two of his assistants, Jenkins and Armat, called the Vitascope. The Vitascope was publicly displayed in 1896 in a New York vaudeville hall. After Dickson helped Edison’s competitors develop another motion-picture device, which would eventually become the mutoscope, Edison fired him. With Harry Marvin, Herman Casler and Elias Koopman, Dickson later founded a new movie company, American Mutoscope (later renamed American Mutoscope and Biograph, and then simply Biograph). In the lawsuit filed in May 1898, Edison accused the company of stealing his work; it was one of many infringement lawsuits he would file. In 1902, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Edison did not invent the motion-picture camera, but allowed that he had invented the sprocket system that moved perforated film through the camera.  

In 1909, Edison joined forces with other filmmakers to create the Motion Pictures Patents Corp., an organization devoted to protecting patents and keeping other players from entering the film industry. The courts later found the organization to be an unfair monopoly, and in 1917 the Supreme Court dissolved the trust. By the following year, the Edison Company had abandoned the film industry.



535 - St Agapitus I begins his reign as Catholic Pope

609 - Pope Boniface I turns Pantheon in Rome into a Catholic church

641 - Eligius (Saint Eloy) becomes bishop of Doornik-Noyon

1106 - Henry I of Limburg becomes duke of Neth-Lutherans

1110 - Crusaders march into Beirut causing a bloodbath

1364 - Peter Coutherel banished from Leuven

1497 - Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola

1559 - Excavated corpse of heretic David Jorisz burned in Basel

1568 - Mary Queen of Scots was defeated by the English at the Battle of Langside and immediately fled to North England.

1588 - King Henri III flees Paris

1607 - Jamestown, Virginia, was settled as a colony of England.  English colonists (John Smith) lands near James River in Virginia

1624 - Admiral Hermites fleet blockade Lima Peru

1637 - Cardinal Richelieu of France creates the table knife

1643 - Battle at Grantham: English parliamentary armies beat royalists

1643 - Heavy earthquake strikes Santiago Chile; kills 1/3 of population

1648 - Construction of the Red Fort at Delhi is completed.

1648 - Margaret Jones of Plymouth was found guilty of witchcraft and was sentenced to be hanged by the neck.

1652 - Ingen Ryuki invited to become the abbot of Sofokuji temple in Nagasaki

1654 - Venetian fleet under Adm Adeler beats Turkish

1767 - Mozart's opera "Apollo et Hyacinthus," premieres in Salzburg

1777 - University library at Vienna opens

1779 - The War of Bavarian Succession ended.

1787 - Captain Arthur Phillip left Britain for Australia. He successfully landed eleven ships full of convicts on January 18, 1788, at Botany Bay. The group moved north eight days later and settled at Port Jackson.

1820 - Opera "Die Jagarsbrautt" is completed 1830 - Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president

1821 - The first practical printing press was patented in the U.S. by Samuel Rust.

1835 - First foreign embassy in Hawaii forms

1846 - US declares war on Mexico, 2 months after fighting begins

1848 - First performance of Finland's national anthem.

1854 - The first big American billiards match was held at Malcolm Hall in Syracuse, NY.

1861 - Queen Victoria announced England's position of neutrality during th American Civil War.

1861 - The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia.

1864 -  The Battle of Resaca commenced as Union General Sherman fought towards Atlanta during the American Civil War.

1865 -  The last land engagement of the American Civil War was fought at the Battle of Palmito Ranch in far S Brownsville, in southern Texas, more than a month after Gen. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Virginia. PVT John J Williams of 34th Indiana is last man killed

1867 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis became a free man after spending two years in prison for his role in the American Civil War.

1873 - Ludwig M. Wolf patented the sewing machine lamp holder.

1874 - Pope Pius IX encyclical "On Greek-Ruthenian rite"

1876 - Amersfoort-Zutphen railway opens

1877 - Caesar Franck's "Lesson Eolides," premieres

1880 - Thomas Edison tested his experimental electric railway in Menlo Park.

1882 - Toba-indians killed 20 members of French expedition

1884 - Institute for Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) forms

1887 - 15th Preakness: William Donohue aboard Dunboyne wins in 2:39.25

1888 - DeWolf Hooper 1st recited "Casey at Bat"

1888 - Princess Isabel of Brazil signs "Lei Auréa" abolishing slavery in Brazil.

1890 - 18th Preakness: W Martin aboard Montague wins in 2:36.75

1890 - Lord Salisbury offers Germany Helgoland in exchange for Zanzibar, Uganda & Equatoria

1891 - 17th Kentucky Derby: Isaac Murphy aboard Kingman wins in 2:52.25

1905 - James J Jeffries retires as boxing champ

1906 - Bezalel Art School opens in Jerusalem

1909 - Christian National Labor Workers (CNV) party begins in Netherlands

1909 - The first Giro d'Italia takes place in Milan. Italian cyclist Luigi Ganna is the winner.

1911 - 37th Kentucky Derby: George Archibald aboard Meridian wins in 2:05

1911 - NY Giant Fred Merkle is first to get 6 RBIs in an inning (1st)

1912 - Royal Flying Corps formed in England

1913 - First four engine aircraft built and flown (Igor Sikorsky-Russia)

1916 - First observance of Indian (Native American) Day 

1916 - 42nd Kentucky Derby: Johnny Loftus aboard George Smith wins in 2:04

1916 - Native American Day is 1st observed

1917 - First appearance of Mary to 3 shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal

1917 - Ernest Bloch's "Schelomo," premieres

1918 -  The first airmail postage stamps were issued with airplanes on them. The denominations were 6, 16, and 24 cents.

1922 - 48th Kentucky Derby: Albert Johnson aboard Morvich wins in 2:04.6

1922 - 48th Preakness: L Morris aboard Pillory wins in 1:51.6

1923 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Willa Carter (One of Ours)

1926 - In Warsaw, Joseph Pilsudski had President Wojciechowski arrested.

1926 - German government of Luther falls

1927 - "Black Friday" on Berlin Stock Exchange

1927 - VVOG soccer team forms in Harderwijk

1930 - Farmer killed by hail in Lubbock, Texas

1930 - Only known fatality due to hail

1931 - Paul Doumer elected president of France

1933 - 59th Preakness: Charley Kurtsinger aboard Head Play wins in 2:02

1934 - Great dustbowl storm

1936 - Quiroga government takes office in Spain 1939 - 65th Preakness: George Seabo aboard Challedon wins in 1:59.8

1938 - Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded the New Orleans's jazz classic, When the Saints Go Marching In, on Decca Records.

1939 - SS St Louis departs Hamburg with 937 Jews fugitives

1940 - British bomb factory at Breda

1940 - Churchill gives his most famous speech, and declares "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat"

1940 - Dutch Queen Wilhelmina flees to England

1940 - German breakthrough at Grebbelinie

1941 - Martin Bormann is named head of Nazi Party Chancellery in Germany

1941 - Trial against resistance fighter comte d'Estienne d'Orves begins

1941 - Willy Lewis' US jazz band performs in Switzerland

1942 - Helicopter makes its first cross-country flight

1942 - Pitcher Jim Tobin belts 3 HRs in a game

1943 - German & Italian forces in Africa surrender

1943 - German occupiers confiscate all radios

1944 - 70th Preakness: Conn McCreary aboard Pensive wins in 1:59.2

1945 - US troops conquer Dakeshi Okinawa

1946 - Sarwate & Banerjee add 249 for 10th wkt for Indians v Surrey

1946 - US convicts 58 camp guard of Mauthausen concentration camp to death

1946 - Winston Churchill welcomed in Rotterdam

1947 - Senate approved the Taft-Hartley Act limiting the power of unions

1949 - First British-produced jet bomber, Canberra, makes its 1st test flight

1949 - The first gas turbine to pump natural gas was installed in Wilmar, AR.

1950 - Diner's Club issues its 1st credit cards

1950 - The first round of the Formula 1 World Championship is held at Silverstone.

1952 - Minor-league Bristol pitcher Ron Necciai strikes out 27 in 9-innings

1952 - Pandit Nehru becomes premier of India

1952 - The Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India, holds its first sitting.

1953 - NY Giants Willie Mays & Darryl Spencer each hit 2 HRs & a triple

1954 - U.S. President Eisenhower signed into law the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Act.

1954 - "Pajama Game" opens at St James Theater NYC for 1063 performances

1954 - Labour Party wins British municipal elections

1954 - Robin Roberts gives up a HR then retires next 27 men in a row

1954 - US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak

1954 - The anti-National Service Riots, by Chinese Middle School students in Singapore, take place.

1955 - Mickey Mantle hits 3 consecutive HRs of at least 463'

1956 - Pachyderm Building at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo opens

1958- French troops took control of Algiers

1958 - French settlers riot against French army in Algeria

1958 - Jordan & Iraq form Arab Federation

1958 - Pierre Pflimlin forms French government

1958 -American Vice Preisdent Richard Nixon's limousine was attacked and battered by rocks thrown by  anti-American demonstrators in Caracas, Venezuela.

1958 - Stan Musial, is 8th to get 3,000 hits

1958 - The trade mark Velcro is registered.

1959 - Kraft Music Hall with Milton Berle, last airs on NBC-TV

1960 - First launch of Delta satellite launching vehicle; it failed

1960 - WOLE TV channel 12 in Aguadillo, PR

1965 - Rolling Stones record "Satisfaction"

1965 - Several Arab nations break ties with West Germany after it established diplomatic relations with Israel

1966 - Rolling Stones release "Paint it Black"

1966 - Federal education funding is denied to 12 school districts in the South because of violations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

1967 - NY Yankee Mickey Mantle hits career HR #500 off Stu Miller

1967 - Octagonal boxing ring is tested to avoid corner injuries

1968 - 1,000,000 French demonstrate against De Gaulle & Georges Pompidou

1968 - Peace talks between the U.S. and North Vietnam began in Paris.

1969 - Race riots, later known as the May 13 Incident, take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

1970 - Beatles movie "Let it Be" premieres

1971 - Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane seriously injured in a car accident

1972 - 115 die in nightclub atop 7-story Sennichi dept store (Osaka Japan)

1972 - Milwaukee Brewers beat Minnesota Twins, 4-3, in 22 innings (started 5/12)

1973 - "Cyrano" opens at Palace Theater NYC for 49 performances

1973 - Tennis male chauvinist Bobby Riggs defeated Margaret Smith Court in Mother's Day match in Calif   6-2, 6-1 in front of a world-wide television audience. He would lose to Billie Jean King later that year.

1975 - "Rodgers & Hart" opens at Helen Hayes Theater NYC for 108 performances

1975 - Hail stones as large as tennis balls hit Wernerville Tenn

1976 - 9th & final ABA championship: NY Nets beat Denver Nuggets, 4 games to 2

1977 - Howard Stern begins broadcasting at WRNW, Briarcliff Manor NY

1978 - "Angel" closes at Minskoff Theater NYC after 5 performances

1978 - "Runaways" opens at Plymouth Theater NYC for 199 performances

1978 - Henry Rono of Kenya sets record for 3,000 m steeplechase (8:05.4)

1978 - Joie Chitwood drives a Chevette 5.6 miles on just 2 wheels

1978 - Musical "Runaways" with Elizabeth Swados premieres in NYC

1979 - "Utter Glory... Morrissey Hall" opens & closes at Mark Hellinger NYC

1979 - Shah & family sentenced to death in Teheran

1980 - Cincinnati Red Ray Knight hits 2 HRs in 5th inning vs NY Mets

1981 - Dinamo Tbilisi wins 21st Europe Cup II

1981 - Pope John Paul II is shot and critically wounded by Turkish gunman Mehemet Ali Agca in St Peter's Square, Vatican City

1982 - Braniff Airlines files for bankruptcy

1982 - The Chicago Cubs became the first major league baseball team to win 8,000 games.  (beat Astros)

1982 - Soyuz T-5 is launched-Berezovoi & Lebedev for 211 days in space

1983 - Reggie Jackson is 1st major leaguer to strike out 2,000 times

1984 - "Oliver!" closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 17 performances

1984 - Johan Cruyffs last competitive match

1985 - Tony Perez became the oldest major league baseball player to hit a grand slam home run at the age of 42 and 11 months.

1985 - Carlton Fisk becomes 5th catcher to steal 100 bases

1985 -  A confrontation between Philadelphia authorities and the radical group MOVE ended as police dropped an explosive onto the group's headquarters. 11 people died in the fire that resulted.

1987 - Ajax wins 27th Europe Cup II

1989 - Approx 2,000 students begin hunger strike in Tiananmen Square, China

1989 - Minn Twin Kirby Puckett becomes 35th to hit 4 doubles in a game

1989 - Trinidad & Tobago ties US 1-1, in 3rd round of 1990 world soccer cup

1990 - "Change in the Heir" closes at Edison Theater NYC after 16 perfs

1991 - "Michael Jackson: Magic & Madness" goes on sale

1991 - Apple releases Macintosh System 7.0

1991 - South African activist Winnie Mandela convicted of abducting 4 blacks

1991 - Yankee Stadium fans sing "Like a Virgin" to Jose Canseco

1992 - 3 astronauts simultaneous walked in space for the 1st time 1992 - Ajax wins 21st UEFA Cup

1992 - Concrete foundation for ballpark at Gateway (Jacobs Field) is poured

1992 - Final episode of "Night Court" airs on NBC-TV

1992 - Frank Stallone beats Geraldo Rivera in boxing on Howard Stern Show

1992 - Li Hongzhi gave the first public lecture on Falun Gong in Changchun, People's Republic of China.

1993 - Arsenio Hall's 1,000th show retrospective seen in Netherlands

1993 - CBS' Knots Landing ends 14 year run with 334th show in Netherlands

1993 - KC Royal George Brett hits his 300th HR

1993 - Methane gas explosion in Secunda coal mine South-Africa, kills 50

1994 - Indians, begin a 18 home game home win streak at Jacobs Field

1995 - 6.5 earthquake hits Greece

1995 - New Zealand beats US for the America's Cup

1996 - OJ Simpson appears on British TV discussing his not guilty verdict

1996 - Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kill 600 people.

1997 - Eddie Murray is 6th baseball player to play in 3,000 games

1998 - Race riots break out in Jakarta, Indonesia, where shops owned by Indonesian of Chinese descendants are looted and women raped.

1998 - India conducted a second round of nuclear tests. The first round had been done 2 days earlier. Within hours the U.S. and Japan imposed tough economic sanctions. India claimed that the tests were necessary to maintain India's national security.

1999 - In Moscow, the impeachment of Russian President Boris Yeltsin began.

2000 - In Enschede, the Netherlands, a fireworks factory explodes, killing 22 people, wounding 950, and resulting in approximately €450 million in damage.

2001 - Silvio Berlusconi's House of Freedoms coalition wins the Italian general elections.

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.

2007 - Republic Protests in Turkey.

2012 - 49 dismembered bodies are found on a Mexican highway as part of the Mexican drug war

2012 - Torrential rain in Hunan Province, China, destroys a bridge, 3,500 homes and displaces 28,000 people

2012 - Manchester City win the English Premier League for the first time

The following are the websites that I used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/day/may/13

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/may13.htm

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory