September 13
Events
Pre-1600
- 585 BC - Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victories over the Sabines, and the surrender of Collatia.
- 509 BC - The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Rome's Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the ides of September.
- 533 - Belisarius of the Byzantine Empire defeats Gelimer and the Vandals at the Battle of Ad Decimum, near Carthage, North Africa.
- 1229 - Ögedei Khan is proclaimed Khagan of the Mongol Empire in Kodoe Aral, Khentii: Mongolia.
- 1437 - Battle of Tangier: a Portuguese expeditionary force initiates a failed attempt to seize the Moroccan citadel of Tangier.
1601–1900
- 1609 - Henry Hudson reaches the river that would later be named after him - the Hudson River.
- 1645 - Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Scottish Royalists are defeated by Covenanters at the Battle of Philiphaugh.
- 1743 - Great Britain, Austria and the Kingdom of Sardinia sign the Treaty of Worms.
- 1759 - Battle of the Plains of Abraham: the British defeat the French near Quebec City in the Seven Years' War, known in the United States as the French and Indian War.
- 1782 - American Revolutionary War: Franco-Spanish troops launch the unsuccessful "grand assault" during the Great Siege of Gibraltar.
- 1788 - The Congress of the Confederation sets the date for the first presidential election in the United States, and New York City becomes the country's temporary capital.
- 1791 - King Louis XVI accepts the new French constitution.
- 1807 - Beethoven's Mass in C major, Op. 86, is premiered, commissioned by Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy, and displeasing him.
- 1808 - Finnish War: In the Battle of Jutas, Swedish forces under Lieutenant General Georg Carl von Döbeln beat the Russians, making von Döbeln a Swedish war hero.
- 1812 - War of 1812: A supply wagon sent to relieve Fort Harrison is ambushed in the Attack at the Narrows.
- 1814 - In a turning point in the War of 1812, the British fail to capture Baltimore. During the battle, Francis Scott Key composes his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", which is later set to music and becomes the United States' national anthem.
- 1843 - The Greek Army rebels against the autocratic rule of king Otto of Greece, demanding the granting of a constitution.
- 1847 - Mexican–American War: Six teenage military cadets known as Niños Héroes die defending Chapultepec Castle in the Battle of Chapultepec. American troops under General Winfield Scott capture Mexico City in the Mexican–American War.
- 1848 - Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage survives an iron rod in diameter being driven through his brain; the reported effects on his behavior and personality stimulate discussion of the nature of the brain and its functions.
- 1862 - American Civil War: Union soldiers find a copy of Robert E. Lee's battle plans in a field outside Frederick, Maryland. It is the prelude to the Battle of Antietam.
- 1880 - The Basuto Gun War breaks out after the Basuto launch a rebellion against the Cape Colony.
- 1882 - Anglo-Egyptian War: The Battle of Tel el-Kebir is fought.
- 1898 - Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
- 1899 - Mackinder, Ollier and Brocherel make the first ascent of Batian, the highest peak of Mount Kenya.
- 1900 - Filipino insurgents defeat a small American column in the Battle of Pulang Lupa, during the Philippine–American War.
1901–present
- 1906 - The Santos-Dumont 14-bis makes a short hop, the first flight of a fixed-wing aircraft in Europe.
- 1922 - The final act of the Greco-Turkish War, the Great Fire of Smyrna, commences.
- 1923 - Following a military coup in Spain, Miguel Primo de Rivera takes over, setting up a dictatorship.
- 1933 - Elizabeth McCombs becomes the first woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament.
- 1942 - World War II: Second day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge in the Guadalcanal Campaign. U.S. Marines successfully defeat attacks by the Japanese with heavy losses for the Japanese forces.
- 1944 - World War II: Start of the Battle of Meligalas between the Greek Resistance forces of the Greek People's Liberation Army and the collaborationist security battalions.
- 1948 - Deputy Prime Minister of India Vallabhbhai Patel orders the Army to move into Hyderabad to integrate it with the Indian Union.
- 1948 - Margaret Chase Smith is elected United States senator, and becomes the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate.
- 1953 - Nikita Khrushchev is appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
- 1956 - The IBM 305 RAMAC is introduced, the first commercial computer to use disk storage.
- 1956 - The dike around the Dutch polder East Flevoland is closed.
- 1962 - An appeals court orders the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, the first African-American student admitted to the segregated university.
- 1964 - South Vietnamese Generals Lâm Văn Phát and Dương Văn Đức fail in a coup attempt against General Nguyễn Khánh.
- 1964 - Martin Luther King Jr. addresses a crowd of 20,000 West Berliners on Sunday, in Waldbühne.
- 1968 - Cold War: Albania leaves the Warsaw Pact.
- 1971 - State police and National Guardsmen storm New York's Attica Prison to quell a prison revolt, which claimed 43 lives.
- 1971 - Chairman Mao Zedong's second in command and successor Marshal Lin Biao flees China after the failure of an alleged coup. His plane crashes in Mongolia, killing all aboard.
- 1979 - South Africa grants independence to the "homeland" of Venda.
- 1982 - Spantax Flight 995 crashes at Málaga Airport during a rejected takeoff, killing 50 of the 394 people on board.
- 1985 - Super Mario Bros. is released in Japan for the NES, which starts the Super Mario series of platforming games.
- 1986 - A magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes Kalamata, Greece with a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of X, killing at least 20 and causing heavy damage in the city.
- 1987 - Goiânia accident: A radioactive object is stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating many people in the following weeks and causing some to die from radiation poisoning.
- 1988 - Hurricane Gilbert is the strongest recorded hurricane in the Western Hemisphere, later replaced by Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
- 1989 - Largest anti-Apartheid march in South Africa, led by Desmond Tutu.
- 1993 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shakes hands with Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat at the White House after signing the Oslo Accords granting limited Palestinian autonomy.
- 1997 - A German Air Force Tupolev Tu-154 and a United States Air Force Lockheed C-141 Starlifter collide in mid-air near Namibia, killing 33.
- 2001 - Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the United States after the September 11 attacks.
- 2007 - The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
- 2007 - The McLaren F1 team are found guilty of possessing confidential information from the Ferrari team, fined $100 million, and excluded from the constructors' championship standings.
- 2008 - Delhi, India, is hit by a series of bomb blasts, resulting in 30 deaths and 130 injuries.
- 2013 - Taliban insurgents attack the United States consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, with two members of the Afghan National Police reported dead and about 20 civilians injured.
Births
Pre-1600
- AD 64 - Julia Flavia, Roman daughter of Titus
- 678 - Kʼinich Ahkal Moʼ Nahb III, Mayan ruler
- 1087 - John II Komnenos, Byzantine emperor
- 1373 - Minkhaung I, King of Ava
- 1475 - Cesare Borgia, Italian cardinal
- 1502 - John Leland, English poet and historian
- 1521 - William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, English academic and politician, Lord High Treasurer
- 1594 - Francesco Manelli, Italian theorbo player and composer
1601–1900
- 1604 - Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet, English commander and politician
- 1755 - Oliver Evans, American inventor, engineer and businessman
- 1802 - Arnold Ruge, German philosopher and author
- 1813 - John Sedgwick, American general and educator
- 1818 - Lucy Goode Brooks, Former American slave and a founder of Friends' Asylum for Colored Orphans
- 1819 - Clara Schumann, German pianist and composer
- 1830 - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Austrian author
- 1842 - John H. Bankhead, American soldier and politician
- 1851 - Walter Reed, American physician and biologist
- 1857 - Michał Drzymała, Polish rebel and activist
- 1857 - Milton S. Hershey, American businessman, founded The Hershey Company
- 1860 - John J. Pershing, American general and lawyer
- 1865 - William Birdwood, Indian-English field marshal
- 1872 - Kijūrō Shidehara, Japanese politician and diplomat, 44th Prime Minister of Japan
- 1873 - Constantin Carathéodory, German mathematician and author
- 1874 - Henry F. Ashurst, American lawyer and politician
- 1874 - Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian composer and painter
- 1876 - Sherwood Anderson, American novelist and short story writer
- 1877 - Wilhelm Filchner, German-Swiss explorer
- 1877 - Stanley Lord, English captain
- 1879 - Annie Kenney, leading British suffragette
- 1880 - Jesse L. Lasky, American film producer, co-founded Famous Players–Lasky
- 1882 - Ramón Grau, Cuban physician and politician, 6th President of Cuba
- 1883 - LeRoy Samse, American pole vaulter
- 1883 - Petros Voulgaris, Greek admiral and politician, 136th Prime Minister of Greece
- 1885 - Wilhelm Blaschke, Austrian-German mathematician and academic
- 1886 - Amelie Beese, German pilot and sculptor
- 1886 - Robert Robinson, English chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1887 - Leopold Ružička, Croatian-Swiss biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1890 - Antony Noghès, French-Monegasque businessman, founded the Monaco Grand Prix
- 1891 - Max Pruss, German captain and pilot
- 1893 - Larry Shields, American clarinet player
- 1894 - J. B. Priestley, English novelist and playwright
- 1894 - Julian Tuwim, Polish poet, playwright, and director
- 1895 - Morris Kirksey, American rugby player and sprinter
- 1898 - Roger Désormière, French conductor and composer
- 1898 - C. Sittampalam, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician
- 1899 - Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, Romanian politician