Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 13

This is a list of selected December 13 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← December 12	December 14 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

• 
  Pope Paul III
• 
  Baker Building at Dartmouth College
• 
  The Sherman Fairchild Sciences complex at Dartmouth College
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  Ambrose Burnside
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  Baiji, or Chinese River Dolphin
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  Saddam Hussein captured by U.S. forces
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  The Army of the Potomac crossing the Rappahannock during the Battle of Fredericksburg

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
1939 – Second World War: The Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles defeated the German Deutschland class cruiser Admiral Graf Spee off the estuary of the River Plate off the coast of Argentina and Uruguay.	needs more footnotes
2003 – Post-invasion Iraq: During Operation Red Dawn, American forces found former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hiding in a spider hole and captured him.	{{empty section}} and {{quote farm}}
1642 – Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European explorer to see New Zealand.	already used on Nov24th

Eligible

• 1545 – The Council of Trent, an ecumenical council convoked by Pope Paul III in response to the growth of Protestantism, opened in Trent, Bishopric of Trent (now in modern Italy).

• 1577 – Sir Francis Drake left Plymouth, England, with five ships and 164 men on his round-the-world voyage.

• 1769 – Dartmouth College in present-day Hanover, New Hampshire, US, was established by a Royal Charter and became the last university founded in the Thirteen Colonies before the American Revolution.

• 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces under Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside suffered severe casualties against entrenched Confederate defenders at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

• 2001 – The Parliament of India was attacked by five gunmen, resulting in 15 deaths, including those of the perpetrators.

• 2006 – The Baiji, a freshwater dolphin found only in the Yangtze River in China, was announced as functionally extinct by leaders of the Yangtze Freshwater Dolphin Expedition.

December 13: Saint Lucy's Day; Republic Day in Malta (1974)

• 1643 – First English Civil War: Parliamentary forces serving under Sir William Waller led a successful surprise attack on a winter garrison of Royalist infantry and cavalry.

• 1809 – American physician Ephraim McDowell performed the world's first removal of an ovarian tumor.

• 1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese forces captured Nanjing in China and then began to commit numerous atrocities over the next several weeks.

• 1960 – With Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie out of the country, four conspirators staged a coup attempt and installed Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen as the new Emperor.

• 1981 – Polish Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski (pictured) declared martial law, suspended Solidarity and imprisoned many union leaders.

More anniversaries:

• December 12
• December 13
• December 14