ON THIS DAY APRIL 13
1204 Crusaders occupy Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.
1519 Birth of Catherine de’ Medici in Florence Italy. She was Queen consort to Henry II of France and later regent to her sons.
1520 Raphael’s final influential masterpiece The Transfiguration is put on display a week after the artist’s death.
1570 Birth of Guy Fawkes, English Catholic conspirator who was convicted in the “Gunpowder Plot” to blow up the British Parliament, in York, England. He ws hanged on January 31, 1606.
1598 Edict of Nantes grants political rights to French Huguenots.
1668 John Dryden, aged 36, appointed the first English Poet Laureate by King Charles II. 1742 George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah performed for the first time at New Music Hall in Dublin.
1743 Birth of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States (1801-09), in Albemarle County, Virginia. He died in 1826. 1796 First elephant arrives in US from India. She sailed from Kolkata, India, aboard the merchant ship America. She was a two-year old female named Old Bet. The ship’s captain, Jacob Crowninshield, bought the elephant for $450, expecting to be able to sell it for $5 000 in New York. He underestimated the value and sold her for $10 000.
1861 After 34 hours of bombardment, Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederate forces in the battle that would start the US Civil War. The fort was built as a sea fort on an artificial island near Charleston, South Carolina, to defend the region from a naval invasion. It was built after British forces captured and occupied Washington during the War of 1812. The fort was still incomplete in 1861 and was severely damaged and left in ruins.
1866 Birth of Robert LeRoy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy, in Beaver, Utah. The American train and bank robber was the leader of a gang of criminal outlaws known as the “Wild Bunch” in the Old West. He died in mysterious circumstances in Bolivia in 1908. 1868 Abyssinian War ends as British and Indian troops capture Magdala and Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II commits suicide.
1909 In Constantinople the primarily Albanian First Army Corps seizes the parliament building and telegraph offices, forcing the Ottoman statesman Hilmi Pasha to resign.
1911 In what became the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution, the House of Representatives votes to institute direct elections of senators to Congress, a step towards direct democracy. Previously senators were elected by the state assemblies in their state.
1919 British troops open fire on demonstrators in Amritsar, India, killing 350.
1943 US President Franklin D Roosevelt dedicates the Jefferson Memorial in honor of former President Thomas Jefferson on the 200th anniversary of his birth.
1953 Brigitte Macron, French teacher and wife of president Emmanuel Macron, is born in Amiens, France. She will be 71 today.
1965 The Beatles record their single Help! 1992 Nelson Mandela announces he will seek divorce from Winnie Madikizela.
2009 US record producer Phil Spector is found guilty of second-degree murder of actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.
2020 Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli sings a special Easter concert in the deserted Milan cathedral, accompanied by an organist.
2023 Mary Quant, English fashion designer and 1960s fashion icon who popularised the mini skirt and the Mod Look, dies at 93. | The Historian