December 13

1294 – Saint Celestine V resigns the papacy after only five months to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit. 1545 – The Council of Trent begins as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation. 1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage. 1623 – The Plymouth Colony establishes the system of trial by 12-men jury in the American colonies. 1636 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians, a date now considered the founding of the National Guard of the United States. 1642 – Abel Tasman is the first recorded European to sight New Zealand. 1643 – English Civil War: The Battle of Alton takes place in Hampshire. 1758 – The English transport ship Duke William sinks in the North Atlantic, killing over 360 people. 1769 – Dartmouth College is founded by the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, with a royal charter from King George III, on land donated by Royal governor John Wentworth. 1818 – Cyril VI of Constantinople resigns from his position as Ecumenical Patriarch under pressure from the Ottoman Empire. 1862 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Fredericksburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeats Union Major General Ambrose Burnside. 1867 – A Fenian bomb explodes in Clerkenwell, London, killing 12 people and injuring 50. 1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking: The city of Nanjing, defended by the National Revolutionary Army under the command of General Tang Shengzhi, falls to the Japanese. This is followed by the Nanking Massacre, in which Japanese troops rape and slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians. 1938 – The Holocaust: The Neuengamme concentration camp opens in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, Germany. 1939 – The Battle of the River Plate is fought off the coast of Uruguay; the first naval battle of World War II. The Kriegsmarine's Deutschland-class cruiser (pocket battleship) Admiral Graf Spee engages with three Royal Navy cruisers: , and .