Jan 13 in History

532AD — The Nika riots break out between supporters of the Green and Blue team at the chariot races in Constantinople’s Hippodrome. It escalates from insults hurled at Justinian I to mob riots that last a week, leaving 30-40,000 people dead and Constantinople in ruins. Justinian defuses the riots, rebuilds the city and reigns for 38 years (from 527AD) until his death on November 14 565AD.

1832 — Thomas Lord, 76, founder of the Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, dies in West Meon, Hampshire.

1879 — British athlete Ada Anderson completes a great feat of pedestrianism (a 19th-centrury form of race walking) — 2,700 quarter-miles (1,086km in total) in 2,700 quarter-hours starting on December 16 1878 — in Mozart Garden, NYC, earning her $8,000.

1915 — A 6.7 earthquake hits central Italy, killing 29,978-32,610 people. The epicentre is in Avezzano in the province of L’Aquila, but disaster strikes all the towns and villages in the Fucino area.

1942 — Henry Ford patents the soybean car, built with agricultural plastic, 25% lighter than other cars and intended to run on hemp fuel. Car production is considerably curtailed during World War 2 due to rationing of anything critical to the US war effort. By the end of the war, the plastic car goes into oblivion. 1942 — German test pilot Helmut Schenck becomes the first person known to successfully use an ejection seat in an emergency situation when his Heinkel He280 jet fighter, in tow behind a conventionally powered aircraft, ices up and he can’t start the engines.

1982 — An Air Florida Boeing 737 crashes into 14th Street Bridge shortly after takeoff from Washington National Airport and plunges through the ice into the Potomac River, killing 74 of the 79 people on board and four motorists.

1985 — An express train derails on the bridge over the Awash River at Awash, Ethiopia. It plunges into the ravine, killing 428 people and injuring 500. It is still the worst train disaster in Africa and the 10th worst in the world.

1991 — Forty-two people are killed and 100 injured in a brawl and stampede during a friendly between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates at the Oppenheimer Stadium in Orkney.

2002 — A wild fox wanders into the US Supreme Court Building and evades capture for more than a day despite being spotted by a police officer and observed on video cameras.

2012 — The cruise ship Costa Concordia runs aground off the tiny island of Giglio, off the coast of Tuscany, killing 32 of the 4,252 people aboard.