This Day in History

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March 13

1639 – Harvard College is named after clergyman John Harvard.

1781 – William Herschel discovers Uranus. [I didn't even know he was back there.]

1845 – Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto receives its première performance in Leipzig with Ferdinand David as soloist.

1862 – American Civil War: The U.S. federal government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.

1881 – Alexander II of Russia is killed near his palace when a bomb is thrown at him. (Gregorian date: it was March 1 in the Julian calendar then in use in Russia.)

1897 – San Diego State University is founded.

1943 – The Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.

1985 – The Kenilworth Road riot takes place at an association football match at Kenilworth Road in Luton, England with disturbances before, during and after an FA Cup 6th Round tie between Luton Town F.C. and Millwall F.C..

1991 – The United States Department of Justice announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

1996 – Dunblane school massacre: in Dunblane, Scotland, 16 primary school children and one teacher are shot dead by spree killer Thomas Watt Hamilton who then committed suicide.

1997 – The Phoenix Lights are seen over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and by millions on television.

2003 – The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints have been found in Italy.

2008 – Gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time.

2013 – Pope Francis is elected, in the papal conclave, as the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church.

Births

1798 – Abigail Fillmore (14th FLOTUS), 1855 – Percival Lowell, 1898 – Henry Hathaway, 1910 – Sammy Kaye, 1911 – L. Ron Hubbard, 1913 – William J. Casey, 1914 – Edward 'Butch' O'Hare, 1920 – Ralph J. Roberts, 1932 – Jan Howard, 1933 – Mike Stoller, 1939 – Neil Sedaka, 1947 – Lyn St. James, 1950 – Danny Kirwan, 1950 – Charles Krauthammer, 1950 – William H. Macy, 1951 – Charo, 1954 – Robin Duke, 1971 – Annabeth Gish, 1976 – Danny Masterson

Deaths

1842 – Henry Shrapnel, 1881 – Alexander II of Russia, 1901 – Benjamin Harrison 923rd POTUS), 1906 – Susan B. Anthony, 1938 – Clarence Darrow, 1943 – Stephen Vincent Benét