On This Day
What Happened on January 13 in History
9 events that happened on January 13, oldest first. Every entry is written in our own words and links to its source.
The Young Republic and the Civil War Era
1842
Army surgeon William Brydon reached Jalalabad, one of the very few survivors of the British retreat from Kabul.
A force of about 16,000 soldiers and camp followers had been destroyed by Afghan fighters as it withdrew through the mountain passes during the First Anglo-Afghan War.
Source: history.com; sourcebooks.fordham.edu
The Early 1900s and the World Wars
1903
The first Korean immigrants to the United States arrived in Honolulu aboard the RMS Gaelic.
The 102 newcomers came largely to work on Hawaii's sugar plantations. Their arrival began organized Korean immigration to American soil.
Source: history.com; presidency.ucsb.edu
1929
Wyatt Earp, the lawman of the 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Corral, died in Los Angeles at age 80.
Earp had worked as a lawman in Kansas cattle towns and in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, where he took part in the famous shootout. Later books and films turned him into a legend of the Old West.
Source: history.com
1941
Irish writer James Joyce, author of Ulysses, died in Zurich, Switzerland.
Joyce's experimental novels, including Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939), changed the shape of modern fiction. He died after surgery for a perforated ulcer, weeks before his 59th birthday.
Source: history.com
The Cold War
1966
Lyndon Johnson named Robert C. Weaver to lead the new Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Weaver became the first African American cabinet member. The department was part of Johnson's Great Society push to improve housing and fight urban blight.
Source: history.com; presidency.ucsb.edu
1982
Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the icy Potomac River in Washington, D.C., killing 78 people.
The Boeing 737 took off from Washington National Airport in bad weather with 74 passengers and five crew members. It went down about two miles from the White House.
Source: history.com
1990
Douglas Wilder took office in Virginia as the first African American elected governor of a U.S. state.
The grandson of enslaved people, Wilder grew up in a segregated neighborhood of Richmond. He had already broken barriers as a state senator and lieutenant governor.
Source: history.com; archive.nytimes.com
The Modern Era
1993
Nations began signing the Chemical Weapons Convention at a ceremony in Paris.
The treaty bans the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. The United Nations Secretary-General serves as its depositary.
Source: treaties.un.org
1993
The space shuttle Endeavour launched on STS-54 to deploy a NASA tracking and data relay satellite.
The five astronauts released the TDRS-F communications satellite, which relays data between spacecraft and the ground. The flight lasted almost six days.
Source: nasa.gov