Czar Alexander II assassinated in St. Petersburg
Czar Alexander II, the ruler of Russia since 1855, is killed in the streets of St. Petersburg by a bomb thrown by a member of the revolutionary “People’s Will” group. The People’s Will, organized in 1879, employed terrorism and assassination in their attempt to overthrow Russia’s czarist autocracy. They murdered officials and made several attempts on the czar’s life before finally assassinating him on March 13, 1881.
As czar, Alexander did much to liberalize and modernize Russia, including the abolishment of serfdom in 1861. However, when his authority was challenged, he turned repressive, and he vehemently opposed movements for political reform. Ironically, on the very day he was killed, he signed a proclamation—the so-called Loris-Melikov constitution—that would have created two legislative commissions made up of indirectly elected representatives.
He was succeeded by his 36-year-old son, Alexander III, who rejected the Loris-Melikov constitution. Alexander II’s assassins were arrested and hanged, and the People’s Will was thoroughly suppressed. The peasant revolution advocated by the People’s Will was achieved by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1917.
21ST CENTURY
2020
Breonna Taylor is killed by police in botched raid
Shortly after midnight on March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician, is shot and killed by police in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment after officers busted through her door with a battering ram .
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1991
"Paris is Burning" premieres in theaters
After more than five years of fundraising, shooting, and editing, the documentary Paris is Burning debuts in New York City on March 13, 1991. The groundbreaking look at the culture and characters surrounding the city’s drag ball culture changed the way many people thought about drag, queerness and even documentaries themselves.
INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1781
William Hershel discovers Uranus
The German-born English astronomer William Herschel discovers Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun. Herschel’s discovery of a new planet was the first to be made in modern times, and also the first to be made by use of a telescope, which allowed Herschel to distinguish Uranus as a planet, not a star, as previous astronomers believed.
US GOVERNMENT
1942
U.S. Army launches K-9 Corps
On March 13, 1942, the Quartermaster Corps (QMC) of the United States Army begins training dogs for the newly established War Dog Program, or “K-9 Corps.” Well over a million dogs served on both sides during World War I, carrying messages along the complex network of trenches and and providing some measure of psychological comfort to the soldiers. The most famous dog to emerge from the war was Rin Tin Tin, an abandoned puppy of German war dogs found in France in 1918 and taken to the United States, where he made his film debut in the 1922 silent film The Man from Hell’s River. As the first bona fide animal movie star, Rin Tin Tin made the little-known German Shepherd breed famous across the country.
19TH CENTURY
1836
Houston retreats from Santa Anna’s army
Less than a week after the disastrous defeat of Texas rebels at the Alamo, the newly commissioned Texan General Sam Houston begins a series of strategic retreats to buy time to train his ill-prepared army.
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1965
Eric Clapton leaves the Yardbirds
In and of itself, one man leaving one band in the middle of the 1960s might warrant little more than a historical footnote. But what makes the departure of Eric Clapton from the Yardbirds on March 13, 1965, more significant is the long and complicated game of musical chairs it set off within the world of British blues rock. When Clapton walked out on the Yardbirds, he did more than just change the course of his own career. He also set in motion a chain of events that would see not just one, but two more guitar giants pass through the Yardbirds on their way toward significant futures of their own. And through the various groups they would later form, influence, join and quit, these three guitar heroes—Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page—would shape more than a decade’s worth of rock and roll.
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
2005
Disney names Robert Iger as new chief executive
On March 13, 2005, the board of directors of the Walt Disney Company officially announces that Robert Iger, Disney’s president and chief operating officer, will succeed Michael Eisner as the company’s chief executive officer (CEO). As Disney’s chief executive since 1984, Eisner was credited with expanding the company’s reach into diverse realms of the entertainment industry–including animated and live-action films, theater and theme parks–with phenomenal success. By the spring of 2004, however, Disney was struggling to emerge from a bit of a slump: Its ABC television division was struggling, while its once-dominant animation department was being outpaced by innovators such as Pixar, producers of the massive 2003 hit Finding Nemo. Shareholders voted to strip Eisner of his chairmanship of the Disney board that March, and Eisner announced in September that he would leave Disney in two years.
CRIME
1989
Cult commits murder at Rancho Santa Elena
Cult leader Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo sacrifices another human victim at his remote Mexican desert compound Rancho Santa Elena. When the victim didn’t beg for mercy before dying, Constanzo sent his people out to find another subject for torture and death.
U.S. PRESIDENTS
1961
President Kennedy proposes Alliance for Progress
President John F. Kennedy proposes a 10-year, multibillion-dollar aid program for Latin America. The program came to be known as the Alliance for Progress and was designed to improve U.S. relations with Latin America, which had been severely damaged in recent years.
CIVIL WAR
1865
Confederacy approves black soldiers
On March 13, 1865, with the main Rebel armies facing long odds against must larger Union armies, the Confederacy, in a desperate measure, reluctantly approves the use of Black troops.
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