1913

Events

January

• January - Joseph Stalin travels to Vienna to research his Marxism and the National Question. This means that, during this month, Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky and Tito are all living in the city, as also are Freud and Jung.
• January 3 - First Balkan War: Greece completes its capture of the eastern Aegean island of Chios, as the last Ottoman forces on the island surrender.
• January 13 - Edward Carson founds the Ulster Volunteer Force, by unifying several existing loyalist militias to resist home rule for Ireland.
• January 18 - First Balkan War: Battle of Lemnos - Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it will not venture for the rest of the war.
• January 23 - 1913 Ottoman coup d'état: Enver Pasha comes to power.

  February

• February 1 - New York City's Grand Central Terminal, having been rebuilt, reopens as the world's largest railroad station.
• February 3 - The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect income taxes on all sources of income, not just some.
• February 9 - Mexican Revolution: "La Decena Trágica", the rebellion of some military chiefs against the President Francisco I. Madero, begins.
• February 13 - Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama, declares the independence of Tibet from Qing dynasty China.
• February 18 - Mexican Revolution: President Francisco I. Madero and Vice President José María Pino Suárez are forced to resign. Pedro Lascuráin serves as president for less than an hour, before General Victoriano Huerta, leader of the coup, takes office.
• February 22 - Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and José María Pino Suárez are assassinated.
• February 23 - Joseph Stalin is arrested by the Russian secret police, the Okhrana, in Petrograd, and exiled to Siberia.

  March

• March
• * The House of Romanov celebrates the 300th anniversary of its succession to the throne, amidst an outpouring of monarchist sentiment in Russia.
• * Following the assassination of his rival Song Jiaoren, Yuan Shikai uses military force to dissolve China's parliament, and rules as a dictator.
• c. March 1 - British steamship Calvados disappears in the Sea of Marmara, with 200 on board.
• March 3 - The Woman Suffrage Procession takes place in Washington, D.C. led by Inez Milholland on horseback.
• March 4 - The U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Labor are established, by splitting the duties of the 10-year-old Department of Commerce and Labor. The Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey form part of the Department of Commerce.
• March 4-6 - First Balkan War: Battle of Bizani - Forces of the Kingdom of Greece capture the forts of Bizani from the Ottoman Empire.
• March 7 - Alum Chine explosion: British freighter Alum Chine, carrying 343 tons of dynamite, explodes in the harbour of Baltimore, Maryland.
• March 13 - Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa returns to Mexico from his self-imposed exile in the United States.
• March 17 - The Military Aviation Academy is founded in Uruguay, to become the Military Air Force on 4 December 1952.
• March 18 - King George I of Greece is assassinated after 50 years on the throne; he is succeeded by his son Constantine I.
• March 20
• * Sung Chiao-jen, a founder of the Chinese nationalist party, is wounded in an assassination attempt, and dies two days later.
• * The city of Canberra, the center of the Australian Capital Territory, becomes the official capital of the Commonwealth of Australia.
• March 23 - Supporters of Phan Xích Long begin a revolt against colonial rule in French Indochina.
• March 25 - The Great Dayton Flood, after four days of rain in the Miami Valley, kills over 360 and destroys 20,000 homes.
• March 26
• * Mexican Revolution: Venustiano Carranza announces his Plan of Guadalupe, and begins his rebellion against Victoriano Huerta's government, as head of the Constitutionals.
• * Balkan Wars: The Siege of Adrianople ends, when Bulgarian forces take Adrianople from the Ottomans.

April

• April - Bernhard Kellermann's novel Der Tunnel is published.
• April 5 - The United States Soccer Federation is formed.
• April 8 – The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed, dictating the direct election of senators.
• April 21 - Cunard ocean liner, built by John Brown & Company, is launched on the River Clyde.
• April 24 - The Woolworth Building opens in New York City. Designed by Cass Gilbert, it is the tallest building in the world on this date, and for more than a decade after.

  May

• May 3 - Raja Harishchandra, the first full-length Indian feature film, is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
• May 9-July 11 - A major industrial strike occurs in the Black Country of England, involving 25,000 workers, and threatening preparations for World War I in naval and steel industries. The workers demand 23 shillings minimum wage.
• May 14 - New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100,000,000 donation from John D. Rockefeller.
• May 24-25 - Adolf Hitler moves from Vienna to Munich.
• May 24 - Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia marries Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover in Berlin, ending the decades-long rift between the Houses of Hohenzollern and Hanover and marking the last great gathering of European sovereigns.
• May 26 - Igor Sikorsky becomes the first person to pilot a 4-engine fixed-wing aircraft.
• May 29 - The ballet The Rite of Spring is premiered by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris; its modernist style provokes one of the most famous classical music riots in history. The audience includes Gabriele D'Annunzio, Coco Chanel, Marcel Duchamp, Harry Graf Kessler and Maurice Ravel.
• May 30 - First Balkan War: The Treaty of London is signed, ending the war. Greece is granted those parts of southern Epirus which it does not already control, and the independence of Albania is recognised.

June

• June 1 - The Greek–Serbian Treaty of Alliance is signed, paving the way for the Second Balkan War.
• June 4 - Emily Davison, a British suffragette, runs out in front of the King's horse, Anmer, at The Derby. She is trampled and dies four days later in hospital, never having regained consciousness.
• June 8 - The Deutsches Stadion in Berlin is dedicated with the release of 10,000 pigeons, in front of an audience of 60,000 people. It had been constructed in anticipation of the 1916 Summer Olympics.
• June 11
• * Women's suffrage is enacted in Norway.
• * Battle of Bud Bagsak: Armed with guns and heavy artillery, U.S. and Philippine troops under General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing fight a four-day battle against 500 Moro rebels, who are armed mostly with kampilan swords. The rebels are killed in a final desperate charge on June 15.
• June 18 - The Arab Congress of 1913 opens, during which Arab nationalists meet to discuss desired reforms under the Ottoman Empire.
• June 19 - The Parliament of South Africa passes the Natives Land Act, limiting land ownership for blacks to black territories.
• June 13 - The predecessor of the Aldi store chain opens in Essen, Germany.
• June 24 - Joseph Cook becomes the 6th Prime Minister of Australia.
• June 29 - The Second Balkan War begins with Bulgaria attacking Serbia and Greece.

  July

• July 10
• * Romania declares war on Bulgaria.
• * Death Valley, California hits 134 °F, the all-time highest temperature recorded on Earth.
• July 13 - The 1913 Romanian Army cholera outbreak during the Second Balkan War starts.
• July 27 - The town of San Javier, Uruguay, is founded by Russian settlers.

  August

• August 2 - The first known ascent of Mount Olympus in Greece is made by Swiss mountaineers Daniel Baud-Bovy and Frédéric Boissonnas guided by Christos Kakkalos.
• August 4 - Republic of China: The city of Chongqing declares independence; Republican forces crush the rebellion in a couple of weeks.
• August 10 - Second Balkan War: The Treaty of Bucharest is signed, ending the war. Macedonia is divided, and Northern Epirus is assigned to Albania.
• August 13 - Harry Brearley invents stainless steel in Sheffield.
• August 20 - After his airplane fails at an altitude of, aviator Adolphe Pégoud becomes the first person to bail out from an airplane and land safely.
• August 23 - The Little Mermaid statue is finished in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• August 26 - Dublin Lock-out in Ireland: Members of James Larkin's Irish Transport and General Workers' Union employed by the Dublin United Tramways Company begin strike action in defiance of the dismissal of trade union members by its chairman.
• August 31 - Dublin Lock-out: "Bloody Sunday": The dispute escalates when the Dublin Metropolitan Police kill one demonstrator and injure 400, in dispersing a demonstration.

  September

• September 7-8 - The Fourth Congress of the International Psychoanalytical Association takes place in Munich.
• September 9
• * In Germany, BASF starts the world's first plant for the production of fertilizer based on the Haber-Bosch process, feeding in modern times about a third of the world's population.
• * Imperial Russian Army pilot Pyotr Nesterov becomes the first person to loop an airplane, flying a Nieuport IV monoplane over Syretzk Aerodrome near Kiev, in the Russian Empire.
• * Helgoland Island air disaster: The first fatalities aboard a German airship occur, when the Imperial German Navy Zeppelin dirigible LZ 14 is forced down into the North Sea off Heligoland during a thunderstorm, killing 16 of the 22 men on board.
• September 10 - Jean Sibelius's tone poem Luonnotar is premiered in Gloucester Cathedral, England, with soprano Aino Ackté.
• September 17 - In Chicago, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith is founded, with Sigmund Livingston as its first president.
• September 23 - French aviator Roland Garros crosses the Mediterranean in an airplane flying from Fréjus, France to Bizerte, Tunisia.
• September 29 - Second Balkan War: The Treaty of Constantinople is signed in Istanbul, between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria.