February 13 in history — What Happened Today in History

Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

A cinema fire in Turin, Italy, kills 64 people.

A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.

An intense windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 0.5-mile (0.80 km) long section of the Hood Canal Bridge.

Hilton bombing: A bomb explodes in a refuse truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing two refuse collectors and a policeman.

Fire at One World Trade Center (North Tower) of the World Trade Center in New York.

American researchers discover the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain.

An allegedly 500,000-year-old rock is discovered near Olancha, California, US, that appears to anachronistically encase a spark plug.

With the success of a nuclear test codenamed "Gerboise Bleue", France becomes the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons.

Black college students stage the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee.

Israel obtains four of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls.

Twenty-nine people are killed when Sabena Flight 503 crashes into Monte Terminillo near Rieti, Italy.

Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game.

Korean War: Battle of Chipyong-ni, which represented the "high-water mark" of the Chinese incursion into South Korea, commences.

World War II: The siege of Budapest concludes with the unconditional surrender of German and Hungarian forces to the Red Army.

World War II: Royal Air Force bombers are dispatched to Dresden, Germany to attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment.

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh.

The British Raj completes its transfer from Calcutta to New Delhi.

The Negro National League is formed.

Copyright: In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

The 13th Dalai Lama proclaims Tibetan independence following a period of domination by Manchu Qing dynasty and initiates a period of almost four decades of independence.

Thomas Edison observes thermionic emission.

Work begins on the covering of the Senne, burying Brussels's primary river and creating the modern central boulevards.

Italian unification: The Siege of Gaeta ends with the capitulation of the defending fortress, effectively bringing an end of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The delegation headed by Metropolitan bishop Andrei Șaguna hands out to the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria the General Petition of Romanian leaders in Transylvania, Banat and Bukovina, which demands that the Romanian nation be recognized.

The Assassination of the Duke of Berry takes place in Paris. The Duke of Berry, nephew of Louis XVIII, is stabbed to death while attending the Paris Opera.

Treaty of Giyanti signed by VOC, Pakubuwono III and Prince Mangkubumi. The treaty divides the Javanese kingdom of Mataram into two: Sunanate of Surakarta and Sultanate of Yogyakarta.

Parliament of Negrete between Mapuche and Spanish authorities in Chile brings an end to the Mapuche uprising of 1723–26.

Luke Voit, American baseball player

Nathan Eovaldi, American baseball player

Mamadou Sakho, French footballer

Rodrigo Possebon, Brazilian footballer

Ryan Goins, American baseball player

Dave Rudden, Irish author

Eljero Elia, Dutch footballer

Luke Moore, English footballer

Aqib Talib, American football player

Somdev Devvarman, Indian tennis player

J. R. Giddens, American basketball player

Kwak Ji-min, South Korean actress

Al Montoya, American ice hockey player

Stan Chambers, American journalist and actor (born 1923)

Balu Mahendra, Sri Lankan-Indian director, cinematographer, and screenwriter (born 1939)

Richard Møller Nielsen, Danish footballer and manager (born 1937)

Ralph Waite, American actor and activist (born 1928)

Laura Motta, Brazilian catholic nun (born 1919)

Gerry Day, American journalist and screenwriter (born 1922)

Miles J. Jones, American pathologist and physician (born 1952)

Pieter Kooijmans, Dutch judge and politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs for The Netherlands (born 1933)

Andrée Malebranche, Haitian artist (born 1916)

Yuko Tojo, Japanese activist and politician (born 1939)

Russell Arms, American actor and singer (born 1920)

Louise Cochrane, American-English screenwriter and producer (born 1918)

Daniel C. Gerould, American playwright and academic (born 1928)