Today in History, October 13th
On Friday, October 13, 1307, France's King Philip IV had thousands of Knights Templar arrested. Plus the White House cornerstone and Chile's miner rescue.
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October 13 is best known for 1307, a Friday, when King Philip IV of France had thousands of Knights Templar arrested in a single sweep. The date also saw the White House cornerstone laid in 1792 and the rescue of the last of 33 trapped Chilean miners in 2010.
The big story: France arrests the Knights Templar (1307)
The Knights Templar began after the First Crusade as a religious order of warrior monks sworn to chastity and poverty, with the job of guarding Christian pilgrims bound for Jerusalem. Poverty did not last. Gifts of land and gold from European nobles, a tax exemption and a busy sideline lending money to nobles and kings made the order rich, and it has been called one of the first international banks. That wealth made it a target for France’s King Philip IV, whose kingdom was deep in debt. On Friday, October 13, 1307, his agents arrested an estimated 15,000 people across France: knights, monks, servants and laborers, including grand master Jacques de Molay. They were charged with 127 heresies, and torture produced confessions, many of them false. Pope Clement V followed with arrests elsewhere in Europe. In 1314 de Molay took back his confession and Philip had him burned at the stake. The episode is often cited as one source of Friday the 13th’s unlucky reputation.
More events on October 13
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1773 | Astronomer Charles Messier discovered the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), a spiral galaxy. |
| 1775 | The Continental Congress authorized the first American naval force, the forerunner of the U.S. Navy. |
| 1792 | The cornerstone of the White House was laid. |
| 1812 | British troops and Native allies under Sir Isaac Brock defeated U.S. forces at Queenston Heights, ending an American invasion of Canada. |
| 1843 | B’nai B’rith, which grew into the world’s oldest and largest Jewish service organization, was founded in New York City. |
| 1903 | The Boston Americans beat the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the first modern World Series. |
| 1943 | Italy declared war on Nazi Germany and joined the Allies. |
| 1972 | A Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying a rugby team crashed in the Andes. The wreckage was found more than two months later, and 16 of the 45 people aboard were rescued. |
| 1977 | Four Palestinians hijacked a Lufthansa airliner and demanded the release of jailed members of West Germany’s Baader-Meinhof group. |
| 1988 | The archbishop of Turin announced that carbon-14 tests dated the Shroud of Turin to the Middle Ages. |
| 2010 | Rescuers in Chile’s Atacama Desert brought up the last of 33 miners who had been trapped underground for 69 days. |
| 2021 | Actor William Shatner became the oldest person to travel into space, at 90. |
Born on October 13
- 1925: Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of the United Kingdom, born Margaret Hilda Roberts in Grantham, England.
- 1925: Lenny Bruce, boundary-pushing stand-up comedian, born Leonard Alfred Schneider in Mineola, New York.
- 1941: Paul Simon, singer-songwriter and half of Simon & Garfunkel, born in Newark, New Jersey.
- 1962: Jerry Rice, American football player, born in Starkville, Mississippi.
Sources
- Mass arrests of the Knights Templar, History.com
- This Day in History: October 13, History.com
- On This Day: October 13, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Margaret Thatcher, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Lenny Bruce, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Paul Simon, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Jerry Rice, Encyclopaedia Britannica
