March 13

• March 13, 624
  Muslims under Muhammad defeat non-believers for the first time at the Battle of Badr
• March 13, 1401
  Samogitian uprisings supported by Vytautas took place against the German knights in Great Duchy of Lithuania
• March 13, 1560
  Ottoman navy defeats the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Djerba
• March 13, 1567
  A Spanish professional army under General Beauvoir defeat an army of Dutch radical Calvinists rebels under Jan de Marnix at the Battle of Oosterweel during Dutch Revolt
• March 13, 1569
  Henry of Anjou, count of Anjou, defeat the Huguenots at the Battle of Jarnac during which co-leader of Huguenots Louis Conde dies
• March 13, 1591
  Moroccan forces of the Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur led by Judar Pasha defeat Askia Ishaq II at the Battle of Tondibi ending the Songhai Empire
• March 13, 1610
  Galileo publishes his observations of the night sky under the title Sidereus Nuncius
• March 13, 1634
  King Louis XIII at the urging of Cardinal Richelieu granted letters patent to formally establish the Académie française in Paris, responsible for the regulation of French grammar, orthography, and literature
• March 13, 1781
  British astronomer William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus, assuming it is a comet and names it Georgium Sidus, in honor of George III
• March 13, 1852
  A familiar symbol of the United States, Uncle Sam, makes his debut as a cartoon character in the New York Lantern
• March 13, 1855
  Percival Lowell, an American businessman and astronomer, is born
• March 13, 1881
  Alexander II, Emperor of Russia, and one of the most successful Russian reformers, is assassinated at age 62 when a bomb is thrown at him near his palace by the anarchist group
• March 13, 1883
  Sergey Degayev, a Russian terrorist, shots and kills Russian Gendarme colonel Georgy Sudeykin, security chief of Emperor Alexander III
• March 13, 1884
  Muhammad Ahmad, proclaimed himself the prophesied redeemer of Islam, begins successful siege of British-led Egyptian garrison at Khartoum during the Mahdist War in Sudan
• March 13, 1920
  Wolfgang Kapp's coup attempt in Berlin, Germany, fails
• March 13, 1923
  Lee de Forest demonstrates his sound-on-film moving pictures to the press in New York City, New York
• March 13, 1928
  450 die in Saint Francis Valley Dam burst in California
• March 13, 1933
  Joseph Goebbels becomes German minister of Information and Propaganda
• March 13, 1940
  Finland and the Soviet Union end Winter War concluding the Moscow Peace Treaty by which Finland retains independence but gives up the Karelian Isthmus, Viipuri, and a small band of land north of Lake Ladoga to the Soviet Union
• March 13, 1943
  In Smolensk, a bomb disguised as two bottles of brandy is put on board Adolf Hitler's personal Focke-Wulf 200 Condor plane; the detonator activates, but due to cold temperature, the plastic explosives do not detonate
• March 13, 1989
  Six million people in the northeastern U.S. and in Sweden are left without power for nine hours after a geomagnetic storm causes the collapse of the Hydro-Quebec power grid
• March 13, 1997
  India's Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader

March 12

• March 12, 1054
  Pope Leo IX escapes captivity at Benevento and returns to Rome
• March 12, 1088
  Odo of Lagery elected as Pope Urban II, replacing Victor III
• March 12, 1365
  The University of Vienna is founded by Duke Rudolph IV
• March 12, 1609
  The Virginia Company establishes a settlement in the Islands of Bermuda making Bermuda an English colony
• March 12, 1664
  England's King Charles II grants land in the New World, later known as New Jersey, to his brother James, the Duke of York
• March 12, 1689
  Former English King James II lands in Ireland starting the Williamite War between Jacobites (supporters of Catholic King James II) and Williamites (supporters of Protestant Prince William of Orange)
• March 12, 1755
  First steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine
• March 12, 1845
  Francis Rynd, an Irish physician, describes in the Dublin Medical Press the hollow needle, his invention used in hypodermic syringes
• March 12, 1867
  Last French troops leave Mexico after Mexican Republican victory in French intervention
• March 12, 1917
  Russian State Duma deputies sets up Provisional Committee, a special government body competing for power with the Petrograd Soviet, set up by workers
• March 12, 1918
  Moscow becomes capital of revolutionary Russia
• March 12, 1925
  Sun Yat-sen, the Premier of the Kuomintang of China, dies, creating a power vacuum in the party and triggering contest between Chiang Kai-shek, a member of the right wing of the KMT, and Sun Yat-sen's close comrade-in-arms Wang Jingwei
• March 12, 1930
  Mahatma Gandhi, the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism, with large numbers of Indians begins the Salt March to the sea coast, the campaign against the British salt monopoly in colonial India, which becomes an important episode of the Indian independence movement
• March 12, 1938
  German troops, greeted by cheering German-Austrians with Nazi salutes, march into Austria and annex the country, which is called by Nazi propaganda the Anschluss
• March 12, 1939
  Pope Pius XII is crowned in Vatican ceremonies
• March 12, 1947
  Truman Doctrine, a United States policy to stop Soviet expansion during the Cold War, is proclaimed by United States President Harry S. Truman during his speech addressed to the U.S. Congress
• March 12, 1957
  German Democratic Republic accepts 22 Russian divisions
• March 12, 1968
  Mauritius gains independence from Britain
• March 12, 1968
  After poor performance in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Lyndon Johnson announces he will not seek reelection
• March 12, 1993
  North Korea says that it plans to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and refuses to allow inspectors access to nuclear sites
• March 12, 1999
  Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic join NATO

March 10

• March 10, 1198
  Giralda, a bell tower in Seville, Spain, is built as a Muslim minaret
• March 10, 1734
  Spanish army under Charles III of Spain draws into Naples
• March 10, 1762
  Jean Calas, a French protestant, is tortured and executed in Toulouse on the charge that he has killed his son to prevent him from converting to Catholicismm, who actually made a suicide
• March 10, 1793
  After the failure of the French arms in the Austrian Netherlands the National Convention decrees on a proposal by Georges Danton that there should be established in Paris an extraordinary criminal tribunal, later received the official name of the Revolutionary Tribunal
• March 10, 1814
  Napoleon Bonaparte is defeated by a combined Allied Army at the battle of Laon, in France
• March 10, 1820
  Royal Astronomical Society is founded in England
• March 10, 1826
  Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil, attains the Portuguese throne
• March 10, 1862
  First U.S. paper money are issued without the backing of precious metals in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 and $1000
• March 10, 1876
  Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call and tells his assistant over the experimental device, which converts words into electrical current and back again, "Mister Watson, come here, I want to see you"
• March 10, 1889
  In Ethiopia Emperor Yohannes IV is killed in a war against the dervishes during the Battle of Gallabat
• March 10, 1952
  Military coup by General Fulgencio Batista occurs in Cuba
• March 10, 1959
  300,000 Tibetans band together in revolt, surrounding the Norbulinka Palace of the Dalai Lama in defiance of Chinese occupation forces
• March 10, 1985
  Konstantin Chernenko, party leader and President of USSR, dies at age 73

February 27

• February 27, 425
  Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II founds the University of Constantinople
• February 27, 1531
  German evangelical monarchy joins Schmalkaldic League, a defensive alliance of Lutheran princes within the Holy Roman Empire
• February 27, 1670
  Jews are expelled from Vienna by order of Leopold I
• February 27, 1861
  In the Warsaw massacre Russian troops fire on a crowd protesting Russian rule over Poland and kill five marchers
• February 27, 1879
  Constantin Fahlberg discovers saccharin, artificial sweetener
• February 27, 1883
  Oscar Hammerstein I, a businessman and composer in New York City, patents first cigar-rolling machine
• February 27, 1906
  France and Britain agree to joint control of New Hebrides, an island group in the South Pacific
• February 27, 1940
  Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14, creating the basis for the radiocarbon dating method
• February 27, 1956
  Female suffrage in Egypt
• February 27, 1957
  Chinese Chairman Mao's speech "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among People", marking the start of Hundred Flowers Campaign, a campaign encouraging its citizens to openly express their opinions of the communist regime
• February 27, 1972
  US President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai issue Shanghai Communique, pledging that it is in the interest of all nations for the United States and China to work towards the normalization of their relations
• February 27, 1980
  M-19 guerrillas begin the Dominican embassy siege in Colombia, holding 60 people hostage, including 14 ambassadors
• February 27, 2012
  Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is succeeded by Vice President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi as a result of Yemeni Revolution