Important Historical Events of the year 2013, Year 2013 in History

List of 2013 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 2013

What happened in the year 2013?

Date Event
January 1, 2013 At least 60 people are killed and 200 injured in a stampede after celebrations at Félix Houphouët-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
January 4, 2013 A gunman kills eight people in a house-to-house rampage in Kawit, Cavite, Philippines.
January 10, 2013 More than 100 people are killed and 270 injured in several bomb blasts in the Quetta area of Pakistan.
January 11, 2013 One French soldier and 17 militants are killed in a failed attempt to free a French hostage in Bulo Marer, Somalia.
January 15, 2013 A train carrying Egyptian Army recruits derails near Giza, Greater Cairo, killing 19 and injuring 120 others.
January 17, 2013 Former cyclist Lance Armstrong confesses to his doping in an airing of Oprah's Next Chapter.
January 25, 2013 At least 50 people are killed and 120 people are injured in a prison riot in Barquisimeto, Venezuela.
January 27, 2013 Two hundred and forty-two people die in a nightclub fire in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul.
January 29, 2013 SCAT Airlines Flight 760 crashes near the Kazakh city of Almaty, killing 21 people.
January 30, 2013 Naro-1 becomes the first carrier rocket launched by South Korea.
February 1, 2013 The Shard, the sixth-tallest building in Europe, opens its viewing gallery to the public.
February 7, 2013 The U.S. state of Mississippi officially certifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was formally ratified by Mississippi in 1995.
February 8, 2013 A blizzard disrupts transportation and leaves hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in the Northeastern United States and parts of Canada.
February 10, 2013 Thirty-six people are killed and 39 others are injured in a stampede in Allahabad, India, during the Kumbh Mela festival.
February 11, 2013 The Vatican confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI would resign the papacy as a result of his advanced age.
February 11, 2013 Militants claiming to be from the Sultanate of Sulu invade Lahad Datu District, Sabah, Malaysia, beginning the Lahad Datu standoff.
February 15, 2013 A meteor explodes over Russia, injuring 1,500 people as a shock wave blows out windows and rocks buildings. This happens unexpectedly only hours before the expected closest ever approach of the larger and unrelated asteroid 2012 DA14.
February 16, 2013 A bomb blast at a market in Hazara Town, Quetta, Pakistan kills more than 80 people and injures 190 others.
February 18, 2013 Armed robbers steal a haul of diamonds worth $50 million during a raid at Brussels Airport in Belgium.
February 21, 2013 At least 17 people are killed and 119 injured following several bombings in the Indian city of Hyderabad.
February 26, 2013 A hot air balloon crashes near Luxor, Egypt, killing 19 people.
February 27, 2013 A shooting takes place at a factory in Menznau, Switzerland, in which five people (including the perpetrator) are killed and five others injured.
February 28, 2013 Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Catholic Church, becoming the first pope to do so since Pope Gregory XII, in 1415.
March 3, 2013 A bomb blast in Karachi, Pakistan, kills at least 45 people and injured 180 others in a predominantly Shia Muslim area.
March 13, 2013 The 2013 papal conclave elects Pope Francis as the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church.
March 19, 2013 A series of bombings and shootings kills at least 98 people and injures 240 others across Iraq.
March 22, 2013 At least 37 people are killed and 200 are injured after a fire destroys a camp containing Burmese refugees near Ban Mae, Thailand.
March 29, 2013 At least 36 people are killed when a 16-floor building collapses in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
April 3, 2013 More than 50 people die in floods resulting from record-breaking rainfall in La Plata and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
April 4, 2013 More than 70 people are killed in a building collapse in Thane, India.
April 8, 2013 The Islamic State of Iraq enters the Syrian Civil War and begins by declaring a merger with the Al-Nusra Front under the name Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham.
April 9, 2013 A 6.1–magnitude earthquake strikes Iran killing 32 people and injuring over 850 people.
April 9, 2013 At least 13 people are killed and another three injured after a man goes on a spree shooting in the Serbian village of Velika Ivanča.
April 12, 2013 Two suicide bombers kill three Chadian soldiers and injure dozens of civilians at a market in Kidal, Mali.
April 15, 2013 Two bombs explode near the finish line at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, killing three people and injuring 264 others.
April 15, 2013 A wave of bombings across Iraq kills at least 75 people.
April 16, 2013 A 7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran, killing at least 35 people and injuring 117 others.
April 16, 2013 The 2013 Baga massacre is started when Boko Haram militants engage government soldiers in Baga.
April 17, 2013 An explosion at a fertilizer plant in the city of West, Texas, kills 15 people and injures 160 others.
April 19, 2013 Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police. His brother Dzhokhar is later captured hiding in a boat inside a backyard in the suburb of Watertown.
April 20, 2013 A 6.6-magnitude earthquake strikes Lushan County, Ya'an, in China's Sichuan province, killing more than 150 people and injuring thousands.
April 23, 2013 At least 28 people are killed and more than 70 are injured as violence breaks out in Hawija, Iraq.
April 24, 2013 A building collapses near Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 1,129 people and injuring 2,500 others.
April 24, 2013 Violence in Bachu County, Kashgar Prefecture, of China's Xinjiang results in death of 21 people.
April 29, 2013 A powerful explosion occurs in an office building in Prague, believed to have been caused by natural gas, and injures 43 people.
April 29, 2013 National Airlines Flight 102, a Boeing 747-400 freighter aircraft, crashes during takeoff from Bagram Airfield in Parwan Province, Afghanistan, killing seven people.
April 30, 2013 Willem-Alexander is inaugurated as King of the Netherlands following the abdication of Beatrix.
May 6, 2013 Three women, kidnapped and missing for more than a decade, are found alive in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States.
May 10, 2013 One World Trade Center becomes the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.
May 11, 2013 Fifty-two people are killed in a bombing in Reyhanlı, Turkey.
May 13, 2013 American physician Kermit Gosnell is found guilty in Pennsylvania of murdering three infants born alive during attempted abortions, involuntary manslaughter of a woman during an abortion procedure, and other charges.
May 15, 2013 An upsurge in violence in Iraq leaves more than 389 people dead over three days.
May 20, 2013 An EF5 tornado strikes the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing 24 people and injuring 377 others.
May 23, 2013 A freeway bridge carrying Interstate 5 over the Skagit River collapses in Mount Vernon, Washington.
May 25, 2013 Suspected Maoist rebels kill at least 28 people and injure 32 others in an attack on a convoy of Indian National Congress politicians in Chhattisgarh, India.
May 25, 2013 A gas cylinder explodes on a school bus in the Pakistani city of Gujrat, killing at least 18 people.
May 30, 2013 Nigeria passes a law banning same-sex marriage.
May 31, 2013 The asteroid 1998 QE2 and its moon make their closest approach to Earth for the next two centuries.
May 31, 2013 A record breaking 2.6 mile wide tornado strikes near El Reno, Oklahoma, United States, causing eight fatalities (including three storm chasers) and over 150 injuries.
June 3, 2013 The trial of United States Army private Chelsea Manning for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks begins in Fort Meade, Maryland.
June 3, 2013 At least 119 people are killed in a fire at a poultry farm in Jilin Province in northeastern China.
June 11, 2013 Greece's public broadcaster ERT is shut down by then-prime minister Antonis Samaras. It would open exactly two years later by then-prime minister Alexis Tsipras.
June 15, 2013 A bomb explodes on a bus in the Pakistani city of Quetta, killing at least 25 people and wounding 22 others.
June 16, 2013 A multi-day cloudburst, centered on the North Indian state of Uttarakhand, causes devastating floods and landslides, becoming the country's worst natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami.
June 23, 2013 Nik Wallenda becomes the first man to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope.
June 23, 2013 Militants storm a high-altitude mountaineering base camp near Nanga Parbat in Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan, killing ten climbers and a local guide.
June 24, 2013 Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is found guilty of abusing his power and engaging in sex with an underage prostitute, and is sentenced to seven years in prison.
June 26, 2013 Riots in China's Xinjiang region kill at least 36 people and injure 21 others.
June 26, 2013 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5–4, that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
June 27, 2013 NASA launches the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, a space probe to observe the Sun.
June 30, 2013 Nineteen firefighters die controlling a wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona.
June 30, 2013 Protests begin around Egypt against President Mohamed Morsi and the ruling Freedom and Justice Party, leading to their overthrow during the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état.
July 1, 2013 Croatia becomes the 28th member of the European Union.
July 2, 2013 The International Astronomical Union names Pluto's fourth and fifth moons, Kerberos and Styx.
July 2, 2013 A magnitude 6.1 earthquake strikes Aceh, Indonesia, killing at least 42 people and injuring 420 others.
July 3, 2013 Egyptian coup d'état: President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi is overthrown by the military after four days of protests all over the country calling for Morsi's resignation, to which he did not respond. President of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt Adly Mansour is declared acting president.
July 6, 2013 At least 42 people are killed in a shooting at a school in Yobe State, Nigeria.
July 6, 2013 A Boeing 777 operating as Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashes at San Francisco International Airport, killing three and injuring 181 of the 307 people on board.
July 6, 2013 A 73-car oil train derails in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec and explodes into flames, killing at least 47 people and destroying more than 30 buildings in the town's central area.
July 7, 2013 A De Havilland Otter air taxi crashes in Soldotna, Alaska, killing ten people.
July 12, 2013 Six people are killed and 200 injured in a French passenger train derailment in Brétigny-sur-Orge.
July 13, 2013 Typhoon Soulik kills at least nine people and affects more than 160 million in East China and Taiwan.
July 14, 2013 Dedication of statue of Rachel Carson, a sculpture named for the environmentalist, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
July 16, 2013 As many as 27 children die and 25 others are hospitalized after eating lunch served at their school in eastern India.
July 16, 2013 Syrian civil war: The Battle of Ras al-Ayn resumes between the People's Protection Units (YPG) and Islamist forces, beginning the Rojava–Islamist conflict.
July 18, 2013 The Government of Detroit, with up to $20 billion in debt, files for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
July 20, 2013 Seventeen government soldiers are killed in an attack by FARC revolutionaries in the Colombian department of Arauca.
July 20, 2013 Syrian civil war: The Battle of Ras al-Ayn ends with the expulsion of Islamist forces from the city by the People's Protection Units (YPG).
July 22, 2013 Dingxi earthquakes: A series of earthquakes in Dingxi, China, kills at least 89 people and injures more than 500 others.
July 24, 2013 A high-speed train derails in Spain rounding a curve with an 80 km/h (50 mph) speed limit at 190 km/h (120 mph), killing 78 passengers.
July 29, 2013 Two passenger trains collide in the Swiss municipality of Granges-près-Marnand near Lausanne injuring 25 people.
August 8, 2013 A suicide bombing at a funeral in the Pakistani city of Quetta kills at least 31 people.
August 9, 2013 Gunmen open fire at a Sunni mosque in the city of Quetta killing at least ten people and injuring 30.
August 14, 2013 Egypt declares a state of emergency as security forces kill hundreds of demonstrators supporting former president Mohamed Morsi.
August 14, 2013 UPS Airlines Flight 1354 crashes short of the runway at Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport, killing both crew members on board.
August 15, 2013 At least 27 people are killed and 226 injured in an explosion in southern Beirut near a complex used by Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. A previously unknown Syrian Sunni group claims responsibility in an online video.
August 15, 2013 The Smithsonian announces the discovery of the olinguito, the first new carnivorous species found in the Americas in 35 years.
August 16, 2013 The ferry St. Thomas Aquinas collides with a cargo ship and sinks at Cebu, Philippines, killing 61 people with 59 others missing.
August 19, 2013 The Dhamara Ghat train accident kills at least 37 people in the Indian state of Bihar.
August 21, 2013 Hundreds of people are reported killed by chemical attacks in the Ghouta region of Syria.
August 23, 2013 A riot at the Palmasola prison complex in Santa Cruz, Bolivia kills 31 people.
September 2, 2013 The Eastern span replacement of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens at 10:15 PM at a cost of $6.4 billion, after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the old span.
September 6, 2013 Forty-one elephants are poisoned with cyanide in salt pans, by poachers in Hwange National Park.[6]
September 12, 2013 NASA confirms that its Voyager 1 probe has become the first manmade object to enter interstellar space.
September 13, 2013 Taliban insurgents attack the United States consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, with two members of the Afghan National Police reported dead and about 20 civilians injured.
September 16, 2013 A gunman kills twelve people at the Washington Navy Yard.
September 17, 2013 Grand Theft Auto V earns more than half a billion dollars on its first day of release.
September 21, 2013 Al-Shabaab Islamic militants attack the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya, killing at least 67 people.
September 22, 2013 At least 75 people are killed in a suicide bombing at a Christian church in Peshawar, Pakistan.
September 24, 2013 A 7.7-magnitude earthquake strikes southern Pakistan, killing at least 327 people.
September 29, 2013 Over 42 people are killed by members of Boko Haram at the College of Agriculture in Nigeria.
October 3, 2013 At least 360 migrants are killed when their boat sinks near the Italian island of Lampedusa.
October 11, 2013 A migrant boat sinks in the Channel of Sicily, with at least 34 people drowning.
October 12, 2013 Fifty-one people are killed after a truck veers off a cliff in Peru.
October 13, 2013 A stampede occurs in India during the Hindu festival Navratri, killing 115 and injuring more than 110.
October 15, 2013 The 7.2 Mw Bohol earthquake strikes the Philippines. At least 215 were killed.
October 16, 2013 Lao Airlines Flight 301 crashes on approach to Pakse International Airport in Laos, killing 49 people.
October 19, 2013 One hundred and five people are injured in a train crash in Buenos Aires.
October 22, 2013 The Australian Capital Territory becomes the first Australian jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage with the Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013.
October 28, 2013 Five people are killed and 38 are injured after a car crashes into barriers at Tiananmen Square in China.
October 30, 2013 Forty-five people are killed and seven injured after a bus catches fire in Mahabubnagar district, Andhra Pradesh (present-day Telangana), India.
November 5, 2013 India launches the Mars Orbiter Mission, its first interplanetary probe.
November 8, 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded, strikes the Visayas region of the Philippines; the storm left at least 6,340 people dead with over 1,000 still missing, and caused $2.86 billion (2013 USD) in damage.
November 13, 2013 Hawaii legalizes same-sex marriage.
November 13, 2013 4 World Trade Center officially opens.
November 15, 2013 Sony releases the PlayStation 4 (PS4) game console.
November 17, 2013 Fifty people are killed when Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363 crashes at Kazan Airport, Russia.
November 17, 2013 A rare late-season tornado outbreak strikes the Midwest. Illinois and Indiana are most affected with tornado reports as far north as lower Michigan. In all around six dozen tornadoes touch down in approximately an 11-hour time period, including seven EF3 and two EF4 tornadoes.
November 18, 2013 NASA launches the MAVEN probe to Mars.
November 19, 2013 A double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut kills 23 people and injures 160 others.
November 21, 2013 Fifty-four people are killed when the roof of a shopping center collapses in Riga, Latvia.
November 21, 2013 Massive protests start in Ukraine after President Viktor Yanukovych suspended signing the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement.
November 24, 2013 Iran signs an interim agreement with the P5+1 countries, limiting its nuclear program in exchange for reduced sanctions.
December 5, 2013 Militants attack a Defense Ministry compound in Sana'a, Yemen, killing at least 56 people and injuring 200 others.
December 8, 2013 Riots break out in Singapore after a fatal accident in Little India.
December 8, 2013 Metallica performs a show in Antarctica, making them the first band to perform on all seven continents.
December 9, 2013 At least seven are dead and 63 are injured following a train accident near Bintaro, Indonesia.
December 14, 2013 A reported coup attempt in South Sudan leads to continued fighting and hundreds of casualties.
December 15, 2013 The South Sudanese Civil War begins when opposition leaders Dr. Riek Machar, Pagan Amum and Rebecca Nyandeng vote to boycott the meeting of the National Liberation Council at Nyakuron.
December 16, 2013 A bus falls from an elevated highway in the Philippines capital Manila killing at least 18 people with 20 injured.
December 19, 2013 Spacecraft Gaia is launched by European Space Agency.
December 29, 2013 A suicide bomb attack at the Volgograd-1 railway station in the southern Russian city of Volgograd kills at least 18 people and wounds 40 others.
December 29, 2013 Seven-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher suffers a massive head injury while skiing in the French Alps.
December 30, 2013 More than 100 people are killed when anti-government forces attack key buildings in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.