April 13
1598 The Edict of Nantes awards political rights to French Huguenots.
1775 Lord North augments the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The demonstration disallows exchange with any nation other than Britain and Ireland.
1861 After 34 hours of siege, Union-held Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederates.
1864 Union troops under Gen. Sherman start their staggering walk through Georgia.
1902 J.C. Penny opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
1919 British powers execute several hundred Indian patriots in the Amritsar Massacre.
1933 Lord Clydesdale completes the first flight over Mount Everest .
1941 German troops take over Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
1943 Franklin D. Roosevelt commits the Jefferson Memorial.
1945 Vienna tumbles to Soviet troops.
1960 The first navigational satellite is propelled into Earth's circle.
1961 The U.N. General Assembly condemns South Africa as a result of apartheid (politically-sanctioned racial segregation).
1964 Sidney Poitier becomes the first black person to win an Oscar for best performing actor.
1970 An oxygen tank detonates on Apollo 13, preventing an arranged moon landing and endangering the lives of the three-man team.
1976 The U.S. Central bank starts issuing $2 bicentennial notes.
1979 The world's longest doubles ping-pong match finishes following 101 hours.
Born on April 13
1721 John Hanson, first U.S. President under the Articles of Confederation.
1732 Frederick Lord North, British PM (1770-82).
1743 Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States (1801-09)
1852 Frank W. Woolworth, American retailer.
1866 Butch Cassidy [Robert LeRoy Parker], American bandit and pioneer of the Wild Bunch.
1899 Alfred Butts, innovator of the table game Scrabble.
1906 Samuel Beckett, dramatist, Nobel Prize winner (Waiting for Godot).
1909 Eudora Welty, Southern author (Delta Wedding, The Optimist's Daughter).
1922 John Gerard Braine, British writer (Room at the Top).
1939 Seamus Heaney, Irish artist, Nobel laureate.