Hollow Leg History | What Happened on This Date, September 13?

Hollow Leg Podcast

335

Church of the Holy Sepulchre consecrated. In Jerusalem, Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor responsible for the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire, consecrates a new church built over the purported sites of Jesus Christ's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Deemed by many as Christendom's holiest place, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre will be destroyed and rebuilt more than once.

1899

First Recorded Automobile Fatality in the US takes place. Henry H. Bliss was struck by a taxi cab while crossing the street in New York City. He died the next day due to his injuries.

1933

A Woman is Elected to New Zealand Parliament for the first time. Elizabeth McCombs won the by-elections for the parliamentary seat of Lyttelton, which was held by her husband before he died in August 1933. New Zealand extended suffrage to women in 1893.

1971

Massacre at Attica Prison. A four-day revolt at the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York, ends when hundreds of state police officers storm the complex in a hail of gunfire. On the rainy Monday morning of September 13, helicopters flew over the yard, dropping tear gas as state police and corrections officers stormed in with guns blazing. The police fired 3,000 rounds into the tear gas haze, killing 29 inmates and 10 of the hostages and wounding 89. Most were shot in the initial indiscriminate barrage of gunfire, but other prisoners were shot or killed after they surrendered. In the aftermath of the bloody raid, authorities said that the inmates had killed the slain hostages by slitting their throats. However, autopsies showed that these charges were false and that all 10 hostages had been shot to death by police. The attempted cover-up increased public condemnation of the raid and prompted a Congressional investigation. In the week after its conclusion, police engaged in brutal reprisals against the prisoners, forcing them to run a gauntlet of nightsticks and crawl naked across broken glass, among other tortures. The many injured inmates received substandard medical treatment, if any.

1993

Oslo Accords Signed. US President Bill Clinton hosts Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat at the White House as their representatives sign the 'Oslo Accords,' another step in the complex Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Oslo Accords created a Palestinian Authority tasked with limited self-governance of parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and acknowledged the PLO as Israel's partner in permanent-status negotiations about remaining questions. The Oslo Accords, however, did not create a Palestinian state.