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“Veni, vidi, vici” - “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
~ Julius Caesar
Wikiquote (Julius Caesar (July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) a Roman general, statesman, Consul and notable author of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.)
July 13th, 1174
Wars of Scottish Independence:
1174 - William I of Scotland, a key rebel in the Revolt of 1173–1174, is captured at Alnwick by forces loyal to Henry II of England.
1249 - Coronation of Alexander III as King of Scots.
Wikipedia Image: Sir William Wallace - the huge freedom-fighter beast, by MacAulish ©
July 13th, 1260
Battle of Durbe: the Livonian Order suffers its greatest defeat in the 13th century against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Wikipedia Image: Lithuania (Republic of Lithuania) is a country in Northern Europe, the largest of the three Baltic states. ● Trakai Island Castle Photo: ● Hill of Crosses (more than 50,000 crosses, not a cemetery) ● Vilnius ● Battle of Grunwald and Vytautas the Great in the centre.
July 13th, 1558
Battle of Gravelines: near Calais, France - Spainish forces led by Count Lamoral of Egmont defeat the French forces of Marshal Paul de Thermes at Gravelines.
Wikipedia Painting: The Siege of Gravelines by Pieter Snayers - Museo del Prado, Madrid
July 13th, 1573
Eighty Years' War:
1573 - The Siege of Haarlem ends after seven months.
Wikipedia Painting: Siege of the Schenkenschans by Gerrit van Santen; Relief of Leiden after the siege, (1574); Frederick Henry and Ernst Casimir at the siege of 'sHertogenbosch by Pauwels van Hillegaert; Disarming the waardgelders in Utrecht, 31 July 1618, by Joost Cornelisz. Droochsloot; Swearing of the Peace of Münster by Gerard ter Borch
July 13th, 1643
English Civil War:
1643 - Battle of Roundway Down; in England. Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester, commanding the Royalist forces, heavily defeats the Parliamentarian forces led by Sir William Waller.
Wikipedia Painting: English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers);
John Milton publishes Areopagitica;
Battle of Naseby, victory of the Parliamentarian New Model Army;
Battle of Marston Moor, 1644;
"Cromwell at Dunbar", by Andrew Carrick Gow; Oliver Cromwell; King Charles I, painted by Van Dyck;
"And when did you last see your father?" by William Frederick Yeames.
July 13th, 1787
The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states and limits the expansion of slavery.
Wikipedia Map: Michigan Department of Military & Veterans Affairs The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established an east-west line drawn from the southern tip of Lake Michigan across the base of the peninsula.
July 13th, 1794
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1794 - Battle of the Vosges: is fought between French forces and those of Prussia and Austria.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar;
Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806;
Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet;
Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani);
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo;
Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807;
Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars;
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen;
Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford;
Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).
July 13th, 1863
American Civil War:
1863 - New York City draft riots: opponents of conscription begin three days of rioting which will be later regarded as the worst in United States history.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.
July 13th, 1878
Ottoman Empire (Turkish Empire or Turkey):
1878 - Treaty of Berlin: the European powers redraw the map of the Balkans. Serbia, Montenegro and Romania become completely independent of the Ottoman empire.
Wikipedia Image: Ottoman Empire Maximal extent with the vassal states of the Ottoman Empire in AD 1590s; Battle of Kosovo (1389); Fall of Constantinople (1453); Sultan Mehmed I Ottoman miniature, 1413-1421; Fall of Constantinople (1453); Siege of Rhodes (1522); Battle of Kosovo (1389); Battle of Mohács (1526).
July 13th, 1923
The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles. It originally reads "Hollywoodland " but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.
Wikipedia Photo: Hollywood Sign is one of the highly recognizable ● Hollywood sign at sunset, credit Softpedia.
July 13th, 1941
World War II: Holocaust;
1941 - Montenegrins begin a popular uprising against the Axis Powers (Trinaestojulski ustanak), the first in Axis-controlled countries.
Wikipedia Photo: World War II, The Holocaust. Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM, History 1900s, Internet Masters of Education Technology IMET, Techno Friends, Veterans Today, Concern.
July 13th, 1977
New York City, amidst a period of financial and social turmoil experiences an electrical blackout lasting nearly 24 hours that leads to widespread fires and looting.
Wikipedia Photo: New York City electrical blackout "Film Festival Born Out of a Power Outage".
July 13th, 1985
Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London, England, United Kingdom and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as well as other venues such as Sydney, Australia and Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.
Wikipedia Photo: Live Aid, a pair of concerts organized by Bob Geldof in London and Philadelphia on July 13, 1985 and broadcasted live on the BBC, ABC and MTV, was seen in person by some 172,000 people and on television by nearly 2 billion across the globe.
July 13th, 2011
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2011 - Mumbai bombings (2011); Mumbai is rocked by three bomb blasts during the evening rush hour, killing 26 and injuring 130.
Wikipedia Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)
July 13th, 2013
Typhoon:
2013 - Typhoon Soulik kills at least 9 people and affects more than 160 million in East China and Taiwan.
Wikipedia Photo: Typhoon Ketsana, September 26th 2009. NASA Earth Observatory.