13 January History
- 1397 - John of Gaunt marries Katherine Rouet.
- 1846 - President James Polk dispatches General Zachary Taylor and 4,000 troops to the Texas Border as war with Mexico looms.
- 1862 - President Lincoln names Edwin M. Stanton Secretary of War.
- 1900 - To combat Czech nationalism, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary decrees German the official language of the Imperial Army.
- 1919 - California votes to ratify the prohibition amendment.
- 1923 - Hitler denounces the Weimar Republic as 5,000 storm troopers demonstrate in Germany.
- 1927 - A woman takes a seat on the NY Stock Exchange breaking the all-male tradition.
- 1931 - The bridge connecting New York and New Jersey is named the George Washington Memorial Bridge.
- 1937 - The United States bars Americans from serving in the Civil War in Spain.
- 1943 - General Leclerc's Free French forces merge with the British under Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery in Libya.
- 1944 - Plants are destroyed and 64 U.S. aircraft are lost in an air attack in Germany.
- 1945 - The Red Army opens an offensive in South Poland, crashing 25 miles through the German lines.
- 1947 - British troops replace striking truck drivers.
- 1955 - Chase National and the Bank of Manhattan agree to merge resulting in the second largest U.S. bank.
- 1965 - Two U.S. planes are shot down in Laos while on a combat mission.
- 1968 - U.S. reports shifting most air targets from North Vietnam to Laos.
- 1976 - Argentina ousts a British envoy in dispute over the Falkland Islands.
- 1980 - The United States offers Pakistan a two-year aid plan to counter the Soviet threat in Afghanistan.
13 January Birthdays
- 1808 - Salmon P. Chase, U.S. Treasury Secretary, sixth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
- 1832 - Horatio Alger, Jr., American children's author (Ragged Dick, Tattered Tom).
- 1919 - Robert Stack, actor