TODAY IN HISTORY - MARCH 13TH

1639 – Harvard College is named after clergyman John Harvard.

1781 – William Herschel discovers Uranus.

1798 – Abigail Fillmore, American wife of Millard Fillmore, 14th First Lady of the United States (d. 1853) is born.

1862 – American Civil War: The U.S. federal government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.

1865 – American Civil War: The Confederate States of America agree to the use of African American troops.

1897 – San Diego State University is founded.

1901 – Benjamin Harrison, American general and politician, 23rd President of the United States (b. 1833) dies.

1906 – Susan B. Anthony, American activist (b. 1820) dies.

1911 – L. Ron Hubbard, American religious leader and author, founded the Church of Scientology (d. 1986) is born.

1930 – The news of the discovery of Pluto is telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory.

1933 – Great Depression: Banks in the U.S. begin to re-open after President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandates a "bank holiday".

1938 – World News Roundup is broadcast for the first time on CBS Radio in the United States.

1962 – Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivers a proposal, called Operation Northwoods, regarding performing terrorist attacks upon Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The proposal is scrapped and President John F. Kennedy removes Lemnitzer from his position.

1964 – American Kitty Genovese is murdered, the media erroneously report that many of the victim's neighbours witnessed the crime yet failed to help, prompting research into the bystander effect.

1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.

1991 – The United States Department of Justice announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

1997 – India's Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader.

1997 – The Phoenix Lights are seen over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and by millions on television.

2003 – Human evolution: The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints of an upright-walking human had been found in Italy.

2006 – Robert C. Baker, American chef, invented the chicken nugget (b. 1921) dies.

2008 – Gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time.

2013 – Pope Francis is elected, in the papal conclave, as the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church.