This Day in History

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May 13

1515 – Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk are officially married at Greenwich.

1780 – The Cumberland Compact is signed by leaders of the settlers in early Tennessee.

1787 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England, with eleven ships full of convicts (the "First Fleet") to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1861 – American Civil War: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.

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

1862 – The USS Planter, a steamer and gunship, steals through Confederate lines and is passed to the Union, by a southern slave, Robert Smalls, who later was officially appointed as captain, becoming the first black man to command a United States ship.

1880 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.

1912 – The Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the Royal Air Force, is established in the United Kingdom.

1939 – The first commercial FM radio station in the United States is launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The station later becomes WDRC-FM.

1950 – The first round of the Formula One World Championship is held at Silverstone.

1954 – The original Broadway production of "The Pajama Game" opens and runs for another 1,063 performances.

1958 – The trademark Velcro is registered.

Ben Carlin becomes the first (and only) person to circumnavigate the world by amphibious vehicle, having travelled over 17,000 kilometres (11,000 mi) by sea and 62,000 kilometres (39,000 mi) by land during a ten-year journey.

1963 – The U.S. Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland is decided.

1972 – The Troubles: A car bombing outside a crowded pub in Belfast sparks a two-day gun battle involving the Provisional IRA, Ulster Volunteer Force and British Army. Seven people are killed and over 66 injured.

1985 – Police release a bomb on MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia to end a stand-off, killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.

1989 – Large groups of students occupy Tiananmen Square and begin a hunger strike.

1994 – Johnny Carson makes his last television appearance on Late Show with David Letterman.

1995 – Alison Hargreaves, a 33-year-old British mother, becomes the first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas.

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

2012 – 49 dismembered bodies are discovered by Mexican authorities on Mexican Federal Highway 40.

2014 – An explosion at an underground coal mine in south-western Turkey kills 301 miners.

Births

1914 – Joe Louis; 1922 – Bea Arthur; 1923 – Red Garland; 1931 – Jim Jones; 1939 – Harvey Keitel; 1941 – Ritchie Valens; 1943 – Mary Wells; 1945 – Magic Dick; 1949 – Franklyn Ajaye; 1950 – Danny Kirwan, Stevie Wonder; 1952 – John Kasich; 1961 – Dennis Rodman; 1964 – Stephen Colbert; 1966 – Lee Altus, Darius Rucker; 1967 – Chuck Schuldiner; 1969 – Buckethead; 1977 – Samantha Morton; 1986 – Lena Dunham

Deaths

1884 – Cyrus McCormick (co-founded International Harvester); 1961 – Gary Cooper; 1972 – Dan Blocker; 1975 – Bob Wills; 1977 – Mickey Spillane (the mobster, not the author); 1988 – Chet Baker; 1999 – Gene Sarazen; 2000 – Paul Bartel; 2001 – Jason Miller (Father Damian in "The Exorcist"); 2005 – Eddie Barclay; 2012 – Donald "Duck" Dunn