History for April 13

History for April 13 - On-This-Day.com

Thomas Jefferson 1743 - 3rd U.S. President

• 1861 - After 34 hours of bombardment, the Union-held Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederates.
• 1949 - Philip S. Hench and associates announced that cortizone was an effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
• 1959 - A Vatican edict prohibited Roman Catholics from voting for Communists.
• 1976 - The U.S. Federal Reserve introduced $2 bicentennial notes.
• 1981 - Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke received a Pulitzer Prize for her feature about an 8-year-old heroin addict named "Jimmy." Cooke relinquished the prize two days later after admitting she had fabricated the story.
• 1999 - Jack Kervorkian was sentenced in Pontiac, MI, to 10 to 25 years in prison for the second-degree murder of Thomas Youk. Youk's assisted suicide was videotaped and shown on "60 Minutes" in 1998.
• 2002 - Venezuela's interim president, Pedro Carmona, resigned a day after taking office. Thousands of protesters had protested over the ousting of president Hugo Chavez.