What happened on 13 April?

14 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1743 Born: Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of Independence; third US president.
2. 2024 Iran–Israel direct strikes Iran and Israel exchange direct missile and drone strikes for the first time, escalating the regional confrontation.
3. 1829 Catholic Emancipation Roman Catholic Relief Act lets Catholics sit in Parliament for first time since the Reformation, won by Daniel O'Connell's mass campaign.
4. 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre British troops fire on unarmed crowd in Amritsar; turning point for Indian nationalism.
5. 1742 Handel's Messiah English-language oratorio; standing audience tradition for the Hallelujah chorus reportedly started by George II.
6. 1598 Edict of Nantes Henry IV grants Huguenots substantial rights of worship; ends French Wars of Religion; revoked 1685 by Louis XIV.
7. 1922 Born: Julius Nyerere Tanzanian father of the nation; theorist of African socialism (Ujamaa).
8. 1771 Born: Richard Trevithick Cornish engineer who built the first high-pressure steam engine and locomotive.
9. 1519 Born: Catherine de' Medici Florentine-born queen and regent of France; dominated French politics through the Wars of Religion as mother of three kings.
10. 1975 Lebanese Civil War Multi-sided sectarian war devastates Lebanon for 15 years.
11. 1895 Dreyfus on Devil's Island For four years the prisoner lives in a stone hut on a rock off French Guiana, at times shackled to his bed at night, writing letters to a wife whose replies are censored to blankne
12. 1906 Born: Samuel Beckett Irish writer of Waiting for Godot; Nobel laureate in literature.
13. 1640 Personal Rule of Charles I ends Conventional end of Personal Rule of Charles I.
14. 1953 Fleming's Casino Royale Ian Fleming introduces James Bond, agent 007, at the baccarat table against Le Chiffre — written in two months at Goldeneye, the start of the biggest spy franchise in history.