March 13

624 Muhammad's preaching after receiving his revelations met with much opposition, so he concluded that Allah intended the divine message and call to be vindicated by political means. Muhammad moved his base from Mecca to Medina, where he taught Islam must be spread if necessary by Holy War. His victory at the Battle of Badr on March 13, 624, with a mere 300 men aided by a sandstorm, enabled the Prophet to reach a wider area with his new religion.

Scene from the Turkish epic Siyer-i Nebi, Hamza and Ali leading the Muslim armies at Badr.

1591 In 1465 the Songhai Empire took control of Mali. It reached its peak under a ruler named Askia Mohammad I and its main city, The Battle of Tondibi took place in Mali on March 13, 1591. The Moroccan forces of the Saadi Dynasty led by Judar Pasha defeated the Songhai Empire, despite being outnumbered by at least five to one. The Mali Empire came to an end in 1610 with the death of the last Mansa, Mahmud IV.

1639 A recently founded and unnamed school in Cambridge, Massachusetts renamed itself Harvard College on March 13, 1639 in honor of clergyman John Harvard, who'd bequeathed £780 and his 400 volume library to the educational establishment. From 1780 onwards it was referred to as Harvard University.

Photo of front facade, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School. By Daderoa

1697 When Nojpetén, capital of the last independent Maya kingdom, fell to Spanish conquistadors on March 13, 1697, it marked the final step in the Spanish conquest of Guatemala. In 1821 Guatemala declared independence from Spain jointly with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

1773 On March 13, 1773, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. Mozart was treated by Hieronymus von Colloredo as one of his servants and like a valet and he was expected to hang around each morning in case he was wanted. When Mozart refused to waste his time the Archbishop yelled at him to get out. On the way to the door Mozart coolly remarked “I hope this decision is final”.

1781 The German-English organist William Herschel devoted most of his limited time he could spare to astronomy. His discovery on March 13, 1781 of the planet Uranus was a spectacular triumph, and soon every astronomer in Europe had heard of William Herschel. Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and is named after the Greek god Uranus, who was a god of sky.  Herschel wanted to name the planet “George’s Star” after King George III of the United Kingdom,

Replica of the telescope used by Herschel to discover Uranus

1809 The romantic poet Lord Byron took his seat in the House Of Lords on March 13, 1809. He made little use of his seat but did speak on behalf of stocking weavers in his home county of Nottinghamshire on February 27, 1812.

1845 Felix Mendelssohn's "Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64," is one of the most popular and beloved violin concertos of all time. It received its world premiere on March 13, 1845 in Leipzig, Germany, with Ferdinand David as the soloist and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Mendelssohn himself. The concerto was an immediate success and has since become a staple of the violin repertoire.

1867 On March 13, 1867 Joseph Lister, the professor of surgery at the University of Glasgow. published an article in The Lancet outlining his discovery that sterilizing wounds reduced post-operative infections. Joseph Lister's methods were soon adopted in Germany, but in Britain many surgeons continued to ignore elementary sanitary precautions and by 1890 half of the hospitalized cases were still dying of infections caught in hospital.

1877 Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine patented the earmuff at the age of 15. He grew frustrated at trying to protect his ears from the bitter cold while testing a new pair of ice skates and made two ear-shaped loops from wire. Greenwood then asked his grandmother to sew fur on them. 

Greenwood patented an improved earmuff with a steel band which held them in place on March 13, 1877. 

1881 Nihilism is a negative existentialist philosophy that believes in ultimate nothingness –life having no intrinsic meaning or value. It was the basis of much revolutionary terrorism in 19th century Russia. Tsar Alexander II was assassinated on March 13, 1881 by bombs thrown beneath his carriage in St Petersburg by Nihilist, Ignaty Grinevitsky.  Czar Alexander II's death resulted in the crushing of the nihilist movement.

1881 The first suicide bomber that succeeded in killing a head of state was Ignaty Grinevitsky, a member of the Russian Left-wing terrorist group, The People's Willing, when on March 13, 1881 he blew up himself and Tsar Alexander II.

The assassination of Alexander II, drawing by G. Broling, 1881

1901 Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States, developed what was thought to be influenza or grippe in February 1901. He was treated with steam vapor inhalation and oxygen, but his condition worsened. He died from pneumonia at his home at 4.45 in the afternoon on March 13, 1901, at the age of 67. Harrison is interred in Indianapolis's Crown Hill Cemetery, next to his first wife Caroline. After her death, his second wife Mary Dimmick Harrison was buried next to him.

1906 From the mid 1850s, Susan B Anthony devoted herself totally to the cause of equal rights for women. Her Quaker background, where unlike most other denominations both men and women were allowed to speak at services, was influential on her beliefs. She died of heart failure and pneumonia in her home in Rochester, New York, on March 13, 1906, 14 years before passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. She was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester.

1921 Mongolia proclaimed itself an independent monarchy on March 13, 1921, ruled by Russian military officer Roman von Ungern-Sternberg as a dictator. Four months later, Russian and Mongolian troops arrived in Khüree and Ungern was captured by the Soviet detachment and sentenced to execution by firing squad. Mongolia was closely aligned with the Communist Soviet Union over the next seven decades.

1925 On March 13, 1925 Austin Peay, governor of Tennessee, signed the Butler Act, which prohibited any teaching that contradicted the Genesis creation story. Four months later John Scopes, a high school biology teacher in the American state of Tennessee was convicted and fined $100 for teaching the theory of evolution. The court case, nicknamed “The Monkey Trial,” received world-wide publicity.

1954 The KGB was the main Soviet security agency, intelligence agency or spy agency, and the secret service during the Cold War. It was formed on March 13, 1954 as a successor of earlier agencies, the Cheka, NKGB, and MGB. KGB is an initialism for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, which translated in English as Committee for State Security.

1997 Mother Teresa resigned as the head of the Missionaries of Charity on March 13, 1997. After leading the organization for nearly 50 years, she stepped down from her leadership role. Sister Nirmala succeeded her as the head of the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa continued to be involved in the activities of the Missionaries of Charity until her passing on September 5, 1997.

1997 On March 13, 1997, thousands of residents of Phoenix, Arizona reported seeing a series of strange lights in the sky over the city. The lights appeared in a V-shaped formation and were visible for several hours. Many people described the lights as a UFO sighting, and the incident has become known as the Phoenix Lights.

2004 During his career, Luciano Pavarotti performed a total of 379 times at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. His final performance at the Met was on March 13, 2004 for which he received a 12-minute standing ovation for his role as the painter Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca.

2008 Gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time on March 13, 2008.  The price of gold had been steadily rising for several years due to a variety of factors, including geopolitical tensions, a weak US dollar, and concerns about inflation.

2013 Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope on March 13, 2013. Bergoglio chose his name to be called Pope Francis in order to pay tribute to St. Francis of Assisi. Francis is the first Jesuit pope, the first ever from the Americas and the first from the Southern Hemisphere. He is the first non-European pontiff since the Syrian Pope Gregory III in the 8th century.