June 13 in History

The American League of Colored Laborers (ALCL) was a short-lived labor union established in New York City in 1850. It is notable for being the first union created for African Americans in the United States. Social reformer Frederick Douglass assisted in organizing the group, which held its first meeting at the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on June 13, 1850. Its initial officers included Samuel Ringgold Ward as president, Douglass and Lewis Woodson as vice presidents, and Henry Bibb as secretary. During the first meeting, an executive committee was organized that was composed of several notable social reformers and abolitionists. In addition to union activities, the league was also envisioned to serve as a benefit society for black tradespeople and entrepreneurs, and to this effect, its leaders planned to establish a mutual savings bank and hold an industrial fair. Despite these plans, the union faltered shortly after its creation, and it would take until 1869 that the first successful national labor union for African Americans, the Colored National Labor Union, was formed.

USS Jeannette was a naval exploration vessel which, commanded by George W. De Long, undertook the Jeannette expedition of 1879–1881 to the Arctic. After being trapped in the ice and drifting for almost two years, the ship and her crew of 33 were released from the ice, then trapped again, crushed and sunk some 300 nautical miles north of the Siberian coast. The entire crew survived the sinking, but eight died while sailing towards land in a small cutter. The others reached Siberia, but 12 subsequently perished in the Lena Delta, including De Long.

Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms and the first Democrat elected president after the American Civil War.

Yukon is a territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada's westernmost and smallest territory by land area. As of the 2021 census, Yukon is the middle of the three territories in terms of population, but the most densely populated. As of the 2025 fourth quarter estimates Yukon had a population of 48,261. Whitehorse, the territorial capital, is the largest city in northern Canada.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, military officer, and author. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris, a distance of 3,600 miles (5,800 km), flying alone for over 33 hours. His aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, was built to compete for the $25,000 Orteig Prize for the first flight between the two cities. Although not the first transatlantic flight, it was the first solo crossing of the Atlantic and the longest at the time by nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km), setting a new flight distance world record. The achievement garnered Lindbergh worldwide fame and stands as one of the most consequential flights in history, signalling a new era of air transportation between parts of the globe.

The 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen" was a German Waffen-SS division that saw action on the Western Front during World War II. It was formed in October 1943 from Germans, Volksdeutsche, Romanians, and Belgians, and included a cadre from the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg. The division was sent into battle, destroyed, and rebuilt, before surrendering to U.S. forces near Achen Lake in May 1945. It was first stationed in southwest France before being sent to Normandy in June 1944, where it launched a counterattack against the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The 17th slowed down their advance but was practically destroyed as of July 1944. The division was rebuilt in eastern France and took part in the Battle of Metz, where it took heavy losses, and after that its remnants fought against the Western Allied invasion of Germany.

The Catalina affair was a military confrontation and Cold War-era diplomatic crisis in June 1952, in which Soviet Air Force fighter jets shot down two Swedish aircraft over international waters in the Baltic Sea.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. Johnson was vice president under John F. Kennedy from 1961 until Kennedy's assassination in 1963, when he assumed the presidency. Before becoming vice president, he served in both houses of the U.S. Congress, representing Texas as a member of the Democratic Party.

The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. The Phillies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East Division. Since 2004, the team's home stadium has been Citizens Bank Park, located in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex.

Trooping the Colour is a ceremonial event performed every year on Horse Guards Parade in London, United Kingdom, by regiments of Household Division, to celebrate the official birthday of the sovereign, though the event is not necessarily held on that day. It is also known as the Sovereign's Birthday Parade or the King's Birthday Parade. Similar events are held in other Commonwealth countries. In the UK, it is the biggest event of the ceremonial calendar, and watched by millions on television, on the streets of London and in the stands at Horse Guards Parade.

Mount Tumbledown, Mount William, and Sapper Hill are located to the west of Port Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands. Due to their proximity to the capital, these positions held strategic importance during the 1982 Falklands War. On the night of 13–14 June, British forces launched an offensive against Mount Tumbledown and the surrounding high ground. The operation was successful, forcing the retreat of the Argentine force. This engagement, one of several night battles during the British advance toward Stanley, allowed British troops to secure a dominant position over the town, leading to the fall of Stanley and the surrender of Argentine forces on the islands.

The June 1990 Mineriad was the suppression of anti-National Salvation Front (FSN) rioting in Bucharest, Romania by the physical intervention of groups of industrial workers as well as coal miners from the Jiu Valley, brought to Bucharest by the government to counter the rising violence of the protesters. This event occurred several weeks after the FSN achieved a landslide victory in the May 1990 general election, the first elections after the fall of the communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Many of the miners, factory workers, and other anti-protester groups, fought with the protesters and bystanders. The violence resulted in some deaths and many injuries on both sides of the confrontations. Official figures listed seven fatalities and hundreds of injured, although media estimates of the number killed and injured varied widely and were often much higher.

The Montana Freemen were an anti-government Christian Patriot militia based outside the town of Jordan, Montana, United States. The members of the group referred to their land as "Justus Township" and had declared their leaders and followers "sovereign citizens" no longer under the authority of any outside government. They became the center of public attention in 1996 when they engaged in a prolonged armed standoff with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Timothy James McVeigh was an American domestic terrorist who masterminded and perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. The bombing itself killed 167 or 168 people, injured 684 people, and destroyed one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. A rescue worker was killed after the bombing when debris struck her head, bringing the total to 168–169 killed. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft, trading as BMW Group, is a German multinational conglomerate manufacturer of luxury vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Germany. The moniker, "BMW ", first came into use when the German firm Rapp Motorenwerke changed its name to Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH in 1917. Thereafter, in 1922, the name and assets of BMW GmbH were transferred to the aircraft manufacturer Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG, thereby giving rise to the company known today as BMW AG.

Mehmet Ali Ağca is a Turkish former hitman for Grey Wolves. On 1 February 1979, he murdered journalist Abdi İpekçi, known for his leftist views, and was imprisoned, but escaped. He travelled illegally to Vatican City on 13 May 1981, and attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II on the same day. However, the assassination attempt failed, and he was captured and imprisoned by the Italian police.

People v. Jackson was a 2005 criminal trial held in Santa Barbara County Superior Court in Santa Maria, California. The American pop singer Michael Jackson was charged with molesting Gavin Arvizo, who was 13 years old at the time of the alleged abuse, at his Neverland Ranch estate in Los Olivos, California.

Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. Hayabusa, formerly known as MUSES-C for Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft C, was launched on 9 May 2003 and rendezvoused with Itokawa in mid-September 2005. After arriving at Itokawa, Hayabusa studied the asteroid's shape, spin, topography, color, composition, density, and history. In November 2005, it landed on the asteroid and collected samples in the form of tiny grains of asteroidal material, which were returned to Earth aboard the spacecraft on 13 June 2010.

On July 7, 2016, Micah Xavier Johnson ambushed and shot police officers in Dallas, Texas, killing five, injuring nine others, and wounding two civilians. Johnson, a 25-year-old Army Reserve Afghan War veteran, was angry over white police shootings of black men. He shot the officers at the end of a protest against the recent killings by police of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

2021 Shiyan pipeline explosion, officially June 13 Yanhu Community Pedlar's Market Severe Gas Explosion Accident in Zhangwan District, Shiyan, Hubei was a gas explosion took place at about 6:30 a.m. local time in Yanhu Community, Checheng Road Subdistrict, Zhangwan District, Shiyan, Hubei on 13 June 2021 in a market, which then collapsed. Locals who were buying vegetables or having breakfast at the market were trapped by the explosion. The explosion resulted in 25 deaths and 138 injuries.

In the early morning of 13 June 2023, three people were fatally stabbed and three others were injured when a van was driven into them in three connected attacks in Nottingham in the East Midlands of the United Kingdom. At around 04:00 BST, Valdo Calocane fatally stabbed two university students in the street and subsequently a school caretaker, whose van he then stole. After driving the van into people at a nearby bus stop, Calocane was arrested.