1598 Apr 13, King Henry IV of France endorsed the Edict of Nantes, which granted political rights to French Huguenots. The edict was abrogated in 1685 by King Louis XIV, who declared France entirely Catholic again.
1965 Apr 13, Lawrence Wallace Bradford Jr. (16) was appointed by New York Republican Jacob Javits to be the first black page of the US Senate.
1984 Apr 13, Pete Rose, playing for the Montreal Expos, became the 1st NL baseball player to get 4,000 hits in a career, joining Ty Cobb to become only the second player to enter the 4000 hit club.
1986 Apr 13, Pope John Paul II visited a Rome synagogue and met with Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff in the first recorded papal visit of its kind.
1993 Apr 13, Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” premiered in London.
1996 Apr 13, President Clinton used his weekly radio address to call on Congress to pass an anti-terrorist bill that had languished for a year despite a promise of quick action after the Oklahoma City bombing.
1996 Apr 13, George Mackay Brown (b.1921), Scottish poet and novelist, died in his hometown of Stromness, on the Orkney Mainland. In 2006 Maggie Ferguson authored “George Mackay Brown: The Life.”
2000 Apr 13, In Zimbabwe acting Pres. Joseph Msika called for an end to squatter invasions of white-owned farms after the high court ruled that police must comply with an order to remove liberation war veterans and other government supporters occupying the farms. Pres. Mugabe was visiting Cuba for a summit of developing nations. Mugabe repudiated Msika’s order on his return.
2005 Apr 13, Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty to carrying out the deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and three other attacks in back-to-back court appearances in Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta.
2007 Apr 13, Former President Alejandro Toledo returned to Peru to visit his ailing sister and face accusations that he forged signatures nearly a decade ago to get his party on the 2000 presidential ballot.
2008 Apr 13, Khasan Yandiyev (51), a top judge in Russia’s southern troubled province of Ingushetia, was shot dead. He had led trials of Islamic rebels.
2009 Apr 13, Pres. Obama eased curbs on Cuba travel and money transfers. A broader economic embargo introduced by Pres. Kennedy in 1962 remained in place.
2009 Apr 13, Pres. Obama eased curbs on Cuba travel and money transfers. A broader economic embargo introduced by Pres. Kennedy in 1962 remained in place.
2012 Apr 13, Nigeria’s Pres. Goodluck Jonathan signed on a $31 billion budget for 2012 in Africa’s largest crude producer amid concern it has not done enough to guard against a possible future slide in oil prices.
2014 Apr 13, Wilson Kipsang (32) of Kenya captured his second London Marathon title by breaking the course record by 11 seconds in 2 hours, 4 minutes, 29 seconds. Kenya’s Edna Kiplagat saw off compatriot Florence Kiplagat to win the women’s London Marathon.
2014 Apr 13, In Israel Ibrahim Hamed, a former Hamas military leader serving multiple life sentences, declared an open-ended hunger strike in protest at his solitary confinement.