1787: The First Fleet headed by Arthur Phillip sets sails with 11 ships of convicts for Botany Bay, Australia
1909: The Giro d’Italia cycle race is held for the first time.
The Giro is considered one of the world’s most important cycle races. Luigi Ganna won the first edition, which went from Milan to Naples and back.
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1940: Igor Sikorsky pilots his VS-300 helicopter’s maiden flight. The helicopter was the first successful model to use the single vertical tail rotor that most helicopters feature today.
1950: The first Formula One World Championship season kicks off.
Giuseppe Farina won the first FIA World Championship of Drivers for the Alfa Romeo team.
1958: During a goodwill trip through Latin America, Vice President Richard Nixon’s car is attacked by an angry crowd and nearly overturned while traveling through Caracas, Venezuela. The incident was the dramatic highlight of a trip characterized by Latin American anger over some of America’s Cold War policies.
1958: French right-wingers opposed to Algeria’s independence stage a revolt, and take over portions of French Algeria. They demanded that retired General Charles de Gaulle be made head of a French government of national unity designed to keep Algeria a perpetual French colony.
1981: Pope John Paul II survives an assassination attempt
Turkish right-wing extremist Mehmet Ali Ağca fired two shots at John Paul II on St. Peter’s Square. The Pope was seriously wounded but survived thanks to a 5-hour operation and went on to visit his attacker in prison.
1989: Thousands of students begin a hunger strike on Tiananmen Square in Beijing
The non-violent occupation of the square was part of anti-corruption and pro-democracy demonstrations. Some 3000 unarmed civilians were killed when the army cracked down on the protesters on June 3-4, 1989.
1998: Comrade Ola Oni, a legendary radical lecturer-activist, Bola Ige, Lam Adesina, and other activists, arrested over the May Day riots in Ibadan, arraigned before the Chief Magistrate’s Court, Iyaganku, Ibadan.
BIRTHS ON THIS DAY: May 13
Stevie Wonder, 74 years old
Stevland Hardaway Judkins was blind soon after birth, Stevland Morris (Wonder) was a child prodigy, signed to Motown Records in 1961 aged 11, and given the stage name ‘Little Stevie Wonder’. He gained fame in 1963 with the No. 1 hit ‘Fingertips – Part 2″.
Wonder’s success continued into the 1980s, his album ‘Hotter Than July’ included the single ‘Happy Birthday’, aimed at promoting Martin Luther King’s Birthday as a national holiday.
Wonder has won more Grammy Awards (25 plus a Lifetime Achievement Award) than any other solo male artist. He became the youngest living inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989 and was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 2009.
Stephen Colbert, 60 years
Stephen Tyrone Colbert, an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host was born on 13 May 1964. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014 and the CBS talk program The Late Show with Stephen Colbert since September 2015.
Joe Louis (13 May 1914 – 12 April 1981)
Joseph Louis Barrow was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. Nicknamed “the Brown Bomber”, Louis is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential boxers of all time. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 until his temporary retirement in 1949. He died at the age of 66.
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