September 13 in History

The Congress of the Confederation, or the Confederation Congress, formally referred to as the United States in Congress Assembled, was the governing body of the United States from March 1, 1781, until March 3, 1789, during the Confederation period. A unicameral body with legislative and executive function, it was composed of delegates appointed by the legislatures of the thirteen states. Each state delegation had one vote. The Congress was created by the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union upon its ratification in 1781, formally replacing the Second Continental Congress.

Ludwig van Beethoven composed the Mass in C Major, Op. 86, to a commission from Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II in 1807. The mass, scored for four vocal soloists, choir and orchestra, was premiered that year by the Prince's musical forces in Eisenstadt. Beethoven performed parts of it in his 1808 concert featuring the premieres of four major works including his Fifth Symphony. The mass was published in 1812 by Breitkopf & Härtel.

The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Congress on 17 February 1815.

The 3 September 1843 Revolution was an uprising by the Hellenic Army in Athens, supported by large sections of the people, against the autocratic rule of King Otto. The rebels, led by veterans of the Greek War of Independence, demanded the granting of a constitution and the departure of the Bavarian officials that dominated the government. The revolution succeeded, ushering the period of constitutional monarchy and universal suffrage in Greece.

Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable[B1] survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life‍—‌effects sufficiently profound that friends saw him as "no longer Gage".

The Basuto Gun War, also known as the Basutoland Rebellion, was a conflict between the Basuto and the British Cape Colony. It lasted from 13 September 1880 to 29 April 1881 and ended in a Basuto victory.

Hannibal Williston Goodwin, patented a method for making transparent, flexible roll film out of nitrocellulose film base, which was used in Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, an early machine for viewing motion pictures.

The Battle of Pulang Lupa was an engagement fought on September 13, 1900, during the Philippine–American War, between the forces of Colonel Maximo Abad and Devereux Shields, in which Abad's men defeated the American force."The severity with which the inhabitants have been dealt would not look well if a complete history of it were written out." —Governor-General of the Philippines William Howard Taft, concerning the U.S. Army campaign on the island of Marinduque during the Philippine–American War of 1899–1902

The Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 was fought between Greece and the Turkish National Movement during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I, between 15 May 1919 and 14 October 1922. This conflict was a part of the Turkish War of Independence.

Elizabeth Reid McCombs was a New Zealand politician of the Labour Party who in 1933 became the first woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament. New Zealand women gained the right to vote in 1893, though were not allowed to stand for the House of Representatives until the election of 1919. McCombs had previously contested elections in 1928 and 1931.

The Battle of Meligalas took place during the Axis occupation of Greece in Meligalas in southwestern Greece on 13–15 September 1944. Greek Resistance forces of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) defeated a Security Battalion garrison loyal to the collaborationist government.

Margaret Madeline Chase Smith was an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, she served as a U.S. representative (1940–1949) and a U.S. senator (1949–1973) from Maine. She was the first woman to serve in both houses of the U.S. Congress. A Republican, she was among the first to criticize the tactics of Joseph McCarthy in her 1950 speech "Declaration of Conscience".

The IBM 305 RAMAC was the first commercial computer that used a moving-head hard disk drive for secondary storage. The system was publicly announced on September 14, 1956, with test units already installed at the U.S. Navy and at private corporations. RAMAC stood for "Random Access Method of Accounting and Control", as its design was motivated by the need for real-time accounting in business.

James Howard Meredith is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and United States Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated University of Mississippi after the intervention of the federal government. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans. The admission of Meredith ignited the Ole Miss riot of 1962 where Meredith's life was threatened and 31,000 American servicemen were required to quell the violence – the largest ever invocation of the Insurrection Act of 1807.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination, which most commonly affected African Americans.

The National Guard is a military reserve organization of the United States Department of Defense (DoD). It is composed of reserve components of the United States Army and the United States Air Force: the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard, respectively. It is based in each of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and three U.S. territories. Guard components are part of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force when activated for federal missions.

Venda, officially the Republic of Venda, was a Bantustan in northern South Africa. It was fairly close to the South African border with Zimbabwe to the north, while, to the south and east, it shared a long border with another black homeland, Gazankulu. It is now part of the Limpopo province. Venda was founded by the South African government as a homeland for the Venda people, speakers of the Venda language. The United Nations and international community refused to recognise Venda as an independent state.

Super Mario Bros. is a 1985 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Directed and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, it is the successor to the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros. and the first game in the Super Mario series. Players control Mario, or his brother Luigi in the multiplayer mode, to traverse the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Toadstool from King Koopa. They traverse side-scrolling stages while avoiding hazards such as enemies and pits and collecting power-ups such as the Super Mushroom, Fire Flower, and Starman.

The Goiânia accident was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, after an unsecured radiotherapy source was found by looters at an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them were found to have been contaminated.

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap, which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. Under this minoritarian system, white citizens held the highest status, followed by Indians, Coloureds and black Africans, in that order. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.

The German Air Force is the aerial warfare branch of the Bundeswehr, the armed forces of Germany. The Luftwaffe was founded in 1956 during the era of the Cold War as the aerial warfare branch of the armed forces of West Germany. After the reunification of West and East Germany in 1990, it integrated parts of the air force of the former German Democratic Republic, which itself had been founded in 1956 as part of the National People's Army. There is no organizational continuity between the current Luftwaffe of the Bundeswehr and the former Luftwaffe of the Wehrmacht founded in 1935, which was completely disbanded in 1945/46 after World War II. The term Luftwaffe that is used for both the historic and the current German air force is the German-language generic designation of any air force.

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a legally non-binding United Nations resolution passed by the General Assembly on September 13, 2007, that delineates and defines the individual and collective rights of Indigenous peoples, including their ownership rights, cultural and ceremonial expression, identity, language, employment, health, education and other issues. Their ownership also extends to the protection of their Indigenous intellectual property. The declaration "emphasizes the rights of Indigenous peoples to maintain and strengthen their own institutions, cultures and traditions, and to pursue their development in keeping with their own needs and aspirations." It "prohibits discrimination against indigenous peoples and promotes their full and effective participation in all matters that concern them, and their right to remain distinct and to pursue their own visions of economic and social development".

Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a megacity and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its right bank, Delhi shares borders with the state of Uttar Pradesh in the east and with the state of Haryana in the remaining directions. Delhi became a union territory on 1 November 1956 and the NCT in 1995. The NCT covers an area of 1,484 square kilometres (573 sq mi). According to the 2011 census, Delhi's city proper population was over 11 million, while the NCT's population was about 16.8 million.