December 13

1545 – The Council of Trent – the ‘Counter-Lutheran Reformation’ – begins

1577 –With 5 other ships, Francis Drake, aboard the Pelican, sets sail from Plymouth, England, on his round the world voyage.

1636 –By order of the Massachusetts Bay Colony General Court, the first militia regiments in North America are organized for colonial defense.

1769 – Dartmouth College is founded by the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, with a royal charter from King George III, on land donated by the New Hampshire Royal governor John Wentworth.

1862 – During the Civil War, Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeats Union General Ambrose Burnside at Fredericksburg, Virginia

1937 – During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the city of Nanking, defended by the National Revolutionary Army under the command of General Tang Shengzhi, falls to the Japanese. With Japanese troops beginning “The Rape of Nanking, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of civilians.

1938 – The German NAZI government opens the Neuengamme concentration camp in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg.

1949 – The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

1960 – While Ras Täfäri Mäkonnän, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia visits Brazil, his Imperial Bodyguard seizes the capital and proclaims him deposed and his son, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, Emperor, but the coup is denounced by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and regular army and police forces end it.

1961 – Folk artist Anna Mary ‘Grandma’ Moses dies, age 101, at Hoosick Falls New York.

1962 – NASA launches Relay 1, the first active repeater communications satellite in orbit.

1972 – Apollo astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the 3rd, final and to date, last human extra-vehicular activity on the moon.

1974 – North Vietnam launches an offensive against South Vietnam that will result in the collapse of the government.

1977 – Air Indiana Flight 216, a Douglas DC-3, crashes near Evansville Regional Airport, killing all 29 passengers and crew aboard, including the University of Evansville Indiana basketball team and support staff.

1983 – Martha Layne Collins is inaugurated as Kentucky’s 1st female governor

1994 – Flagship Airlines Flight 3379, a Jetstream 32 turboprop commuter plane, crashes while attempting to land at Raleigh–Durham International Airport, killing 13 of the 18 passengers and both pilots aboard.

2003 – Fugitive Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured in the town of ad-Dawr, Iraq by U.S. Army forces assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, U.S. Army Special Operations Command.