June 13

313 – The Edict of Milan, signed by Constantine the Great and co-emperor Valerius Licinius, grants religious freedom throughout the Roman Empire.

1525 – Martin Luther marries Katharina von Bora, against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church for priests and nuns.

1774 – Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain’s North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.

1777 – During the Revolutionary War, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette arrives at Charleston, South Carolina, in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army.

1805 – Scouting ahead of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Meriwether Lewis and four companions sight the Great Falls of the Missouri River in north central Montana.

1881 – During the exploration of the Artic, the stranded USS Jeannette is crushed in an  ice pack.

1893 – At the beginning of his second term in office, President Grover Cleveland notices a rough spot in his mouth and on July 1 undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw. The operation was not revealed to the public until 1917, nine years after the president’s death.

1927 – Aviator Charles Lindbergh receives a ticker tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York City.

1966 – In the case of  Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court rules that the police must inform suspects of their of their 5th Amendment rights before questioning them.

1967 – President Johnson nominates Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the Supreme Court.

1971 – The New York Times begins publication of the Pentagon Papers, the classified Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force.

1983 – Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passes beyond the orbit of Neptune.

1994 – A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, finds Exxon corporation and Captain Joseph Hazelwood responsible for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of the oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages.

1997 – A jury sentences Timothy McVeigh to death for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

2002 – The United States withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.

2015 – A man driving an armored van opens fire outside the police headquarters in Dallas, Texas and is killed in a gunfight with police after a vehicle pursuit ending in Hutchens, Texas.

2018 – Volkswagen is fined one billion euros over the emissions scandal, where the on board computer is programmed to change engine performance to meet exhaust standards when a vehicle is being tested.