| 13 April 1055 | Holy Roman Empire [administration] | After hesitating for almost a year before accepting the office, Gebhard of Eichstatt is elected as Pope Victor II. |
| 13 April 1111 | Papal States, Italy, Holy Roman Empire [political events] | Pope Paschal II formally crowns Henry V of Germany as emperor in Rome. Henry has held the title unofficially since 1106. |
| 13 April 1436 | France, England [Hundred Years War (1337–1453)] | The French city of Paris is taken from the English for King Charles VII of France, who restores it as his capital. |
| 13 April 1519 | Florence, France [births and deaths] | Catherine de' Medici, Queen Consort of Henry II of France, regent of France 1560–74, mother of Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III of France, one of the most influential figures in the French Wars of Religion, born in Florence, Italy (–1589). |
| 13 April 1598 | France [political events] | King Henry IV of France promulgates the Edict of Nantes; the Huguenots (French Protestants) are granted freedom of worship in those places permitted by the 1577 Edict of Poitiers and the treaties of 1579–80, and one other in each Sénéchaussée and Baillage, with pastors salaried by the crown. Huguenot courts, Chambres de l'édit, are established and their representation is assured in the Parlements and in public office. They are to abandon alliances with foreign powers, sectarian armies, and dissolve their provincial assemblies. The chaos of the French Wars of Religion ends. |
| 13 April 1605 | Russia [political events] | Following the sudden death of Boris Godunov, tsar of Muscovy, he is succeeded by his son Fyodor II. Fyodor's mother attempts to control the situation as the chaos of the ‘Time of Troubles’ mounts. |
| 13 April 1605 | Muscovy [births and deaths] | Boris (Fyodorovich) Godunov, tsar of Muscovy 1598–1605, whose reign saw the start of the ‘Time of Troubles’ (1598–1613), dies in Moscow, Russia (c. 54). |
| 13 April 1632 | Holy Roman Empire, Saxony, Germany, Bohemia, Habsburg Monarchy [Thirty Years War (1618–48)] | The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II formally reinstates the imperial commander Albrecht von Wallenstein as supreme imperial commander with an army of 50,000 men. Wallenstein is given orders to drive the Saxons from Bohemia. |
| 13 April 1743 | USA [births and deaths] | Thomas Jefferson, third president of the USA 1801–09, a Democratic-Republican, born in Shadwell, Virginia (–1826). |
| 13 April 1829 | UK [law and government] | The Roman Catholic Relief Bill passes the Lords, in Britain, allowing Catholics to sit and vote in Parliament, giving them the right to vote, and making them eligible for all military, civil, and corporate offices except those of Regent, Lord Chancellor of England, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. They are to take an oath denying the pope has the power to interfere in domestic affairs and recognizing the legitimacy of Britain's protestant monarchs. |
| 13 April 1848 | Naples, Sicily, Italy [revolution] | Sicily, having revolted against the rule of the Bourbon King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, declares itself independent of Naples. |
| 13 April 1906 | [births and deaths] | Samuel Beckett, Irish writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, born in Foxrock, Ireland (–1989). |
| 13 April 1909 | Anatolia, Ottoman Empire [revolution] | An army counter-revolution begins in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), Ottoman Empire, against the rule of the Young Turks, following agitation by the Islamic Mohammedan Union. |
| 13 April 1919 | India [political events] | Gurkha troops of the British Army fire on a protesting crowd in northern India in what becomes known as the ‘Amritsar Massacre’, killing 379 people and wounding over 1,200 more. |
| 13 April 1975 | Lebanon [political events] | Civil war erupts in Lebanon when clashes between Palestinians and Christian Phalangists outside a church in the capital, Beirut, leave 30 people dead. |
| 13 April 1979 | Uganda [law and government] | Yusufu Lule succeeds Idi Amin as president of Uganda. |
