On This Day April 13th

 OTD

April 13th is the One Hundred-Third Day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 262 days remain until the end of the year.

 

Events

1204 – Constantinople falls to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire.

1612 – In one of the epic samurai duels in Japanese history, Miyamoto Musashi defeats Sasaki Kojirō at Funajima island.

1699 – The Sikh religion is formalized as the Khalsa – the brotherhood of Warrior-Saints – by Guru Gobind Singh in northern India, by the Nanakshahi calendar.

1742 – George Frederic Handel's oratorio Messiah makes its world premiere in Dublin, Ireland.

1829—The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 gave Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom the right to vote and to sit in Parliament.

1870 – The New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded.

1873 – The Colfax massacre: More than 60 to 150 black men are murdered in Colfax, Louisiana while surrendering to a mob of former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan.

1941 – A pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed.

1943 – World War II: The discovery of mass graves of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government-in-exile in London and the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility.

1953 – CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind-control program Project MK Ultra.

1958 – American pianist Van Cliburn is awarded first prize at the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

1960 – The United States launches Transit 1-B, the world's first satellite navigation system.

1964 – At the Academy Awards, Sidney Poitier becomes the first African American man to win the Best Actor award for the 1963 film Lilies of the Field.

1970—An oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 Service Module explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing significant damage to the Apollo command and service module (codenamed "Odyssey") en route to the Moon.

1997 – Tiger Woods becomes the youngest golfer to win the Masters Tournament.

 

 

 

Birthdays

1506 – Peter Faber, French priest and theologian, co-founded the Society of Jesus (d. 1546)

1570 – Guy Fawkes, English soldier, member of the Gunpowder Plot (probable; d. 1606)

1648 – Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, French mystic (d. 1717)

1743 – Thomas Jefferson, American lawyer and politician, 3rd President of the United States (d. 1826)

1854 – Lucy Craft Laney, American founder of the Haines Normal and Industrial School, Augusta, Georgia (d. 1933)

1866 – Butch Cassidy, American criminal (d. 1908)

1906 – Samuel Beckett, Irish novelist, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)

1923 – Don Adams, American actor and director (d. 2005)

1946 – Al Green, American singer-songwriter, producer, and pastor.

1971 – Bo Outlaw, an American basketball player

 

 

Holidays And Observance

Vaisakhi

Vaisakhi is an essential annual celebration in the Sikh religion and India. It takes place every mid-April and marks the beginning of the crop harvest. As a religious celebration, it has always been a joyous occasion with many festivities and communal celebrations. Over time, this tradition took on new meanings and became significant in Sikh history.

In the late 1600s, Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth of the ten gurus who founded the Sikh religion, was executed by the leaders of the Mughal Empire for refusing to convert to Islam. Shortly after, Guru Gobind Singh became the tenth guru of the Sikh religion and established the Khalsa identity in 1699. As Sikh communities grew in prominence, conflicts arose with Mughal authorities. Vaisakhi then became symbolic of the Sikh struggle for recognition of their religion and a commemoration of the Khalsa and its formation.

The Khalsa refers to both the community of believers in Sikhism and a select group of devout Sikhs. With the creation of a unified Sikh state a few decades later, the Vaisakhi celebration took on another meaning for many Sikhs. Today, Vaisakhi is a celebration of the new solar year and an observance of the recognition of Sikh communities. As one of the most significant Sikh holidays, Vaisakhi festivities include fairs, ceremonial harvest celebrations, and public performances.

 

Others Include.

Aby Massage Day

International Creativity and Innovation Day

International FND Awareness Day - (FND = Functional Neurological Disorder)

International Special Librarian's Day

Make Lunch Count

National Catch and Release Day

National Peach Cobbler Day

Plant Appreciation Day

Scrabble Day

Slow Art Day

Thomas Jefferson Day

Vaisakhi 

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