September 13 is the 256th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 109 days remaining until the end of the year.
585 BC – Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victories over the Sabines, and the surrender of Collatia.
509 BC – The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Rome's Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the ides of September.
379 – Yax Nuun Ahiin I is crowned as 15th Ajaw of Tikal
533 – Belisarius of the Byzantine Empire defeats Gelimer and the Vandals at the Battle of Ad Decimum, near Carthage, North Africa.
1229 – Ögedei Khan is proclaimed Khagan of the Mongol Empire in Kodoe Aral, Khentii: Mongolia.
1437 – Battle of Tangier: a Portuguese expeditionary force initiates a failed attempt to seize the Moroccan citadel of Tangier.
1501 – Italian Renaissance: Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David.
1504 – Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand issue a Royal Warrant for the construction of a Royal Chapel (Capilla Real) to be built.
1541 – After three years of exile, John Calvin returns to Geneva to reform the church under a body of doctrine known as Calvinism.
1584 – San Lorenzo del Escorial Palace in Madrid is finished.
1609 – Henry Hudson reaches the river that would later be named after him – the Hudson River.
1645 – Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Scottish Royalists are defeated by Covenanters at the Battle of Philiphaugh.
1743 – Great Britain, Austria and the Kingdom of Sardinia sign the Treaty of Worms.
1759 – Battle of the Plains of Abraham: the British defeat the French near Quebec City in the Seven Years' War, known in the United States as the French and Indian War.
1782 – American Revolutionary War: Franco-Spanish troops launch the unsuccessful "grand assault" during the Great Siege of Gibraltar.
1788 – The Philadelphia Convention sets the date for the first presidential election in the United States, and New York City becomes the country's temporary capital.
1791 – King Louis XVI of France accepts the new constitution.
1808 – Finnish War: In the Battle of Jutas, Swedish forces under Lieutenant General Georg Carl von Döbeln beat the Russians, making von Döbeln a Swedish war hero.
1812 – War of 1812: A supply wagon sent to relieve Fort Harrison is ambushed in the Attack at the Narrows.
1814 – In a turning point in the War of 1812, the British fail to capture Baltimore. During the battle, Francis Scott Key composes his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", which is later set to music and becomes the United States' national anthem.
1843 – The Greek Army rebels (OS date: September 3) against the autocratic rule of king Otto of Greece, demanding the granting of a constitution.
1847 – Mexican–American War: Six teenage military cadets known as Niños Héroes die defending Chapultepec Castle in the Battle of Chapultepec. American troops under General Winfield Scott capture Mexico City in the Mexican–American War.
1848 – Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage survives an iron rod 1 1⁄4 inches (3.2 cm) in diameter being driven through his brain; the reported effects on his behavior and personality stimulate thinking about the nature of the brain and its functions.
1862 – American Civil War: Union soldiers find a copy of Robert E. Lee's battle plans in a field outside Frederick, Maryland. It is the prelude to the Battle of Antietam.
1882 – Anglo-Egyptian War: The Battle of Tel el-Kebir is fought.
1898 – Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
1899 – Henry Bliss is the first person in the United States to be killed in an automobile accident.
1899 – Mackinder, Ollier and Brocherel make the first ascent of Batian (5,199 m – 17,058 ft), the highest peak of Mount Kenya.
1900 – Filipino insurgents defeat a small American column in the Battle of Pulang Lupa, during the Philippine–American War.
1906 – The Santos-Dumont 14-bis makes a short hop, the first flight of a fixed-wing aircraft in Europe.
1914 – World War I: The Battle of Aisne begins between Germany and France.
1922 – The final act of the Greco-Turkish War, the Great Fire of Smyrna, commences.
1923 – Following a military coup in Spain, Miguel Primo de Rivera takes over, setting up a dictatorship.
1933 – Elizabeth McCombs becomes the first woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament.
1942 – World War II: Second day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge in the Guadalcanal Campaign. U.S. Marines successfully defeated attacks by the Japanese with heavy losses for the Japanese forces.
1944 – World War II: Start of the Battle of Meligalas between the Greek Resistance forces of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) and the collaborationist security battalions.
1948 – Deputy Prime Minister of India Vallabhbhai Patel orders the Army to move into Hyderabad to integrate it with the Indian Union.
1948 – Margaret Chase Smith is elected United States senator, and becomes the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate.
1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1956 – The dike around the Dutch polder East Flevoland is closed.
1962 – An appeals court orders the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, the first African-American student admitted to the segregated university.
1964 – South Vietnamese Generals Lâm Văn Phát and Dương Văn Đức fail in a coup attempt against General Nguyễn Khánh.
1968 – Cold War: Albania leaves the Warsaw Pact.
1971 – State police and National Guardsmen storm New York's Attica Prison to quell a prison revolt.
1971 – Chairman Mao Zedong's second in command and successor Marshal Lin Biao flees the People's Republic of China after the failure of an alleged coup. His plane crashes in Mongolia, killing all aboard.
1979 – South Africa grants independence to the "homeland" of Venda (not recognised outside South Africa).
1985 – Super Mario Bros. is released in Japan for the NES, which starts the Super Mario series of platforming games.
1987 – Goiânia accident: A radioactive object is stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating many people in the following weeks and causing some to die from radiation poisoning.
1988 – Hurricane Gilbert is the strongest recorded hurricane in the Western Hemisphere, later replaced by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 (based on barometric pressure).
1989 – Largest anti-Apartheid march in South Africa, led by Desmond Tutu.
1993 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shakes hands with Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat at the White House after signing the Oslo Accordsgranting limited Palestinian autonomy.
2001 – Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the United States after the September 11 attacks.
2007 – The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
2008 – Delhi, India, is hit by a series of bomb blasts, resulting in 30 deaths and 130 injuries.
2008 – Hurricane Ike makes landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast of the United States, causing heavy damage to Galveston Island, Houston, and surrounding areas.
2013 – Taliban insurgents attack the United States consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, with two members of the Afghan National Police reported dead and about 20 civilians injured.
