December 13

• 1545 - Council of Trent begins
• 1577 - Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, on his round-the-world voyage
• 1642 - Abel Janszoon Tasman reaches New Zealand
• 1862 - The Confederates win the Battle of Fredericksburg in the American Civil War
• 1937 - Battle of Nanjing concludes with the Japanese victory and the fall of the city which became the site of the Nanjing Massacre
• 1938 - 100 deportees from Sachsenhausen built the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg
• 1949 - The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem
• 1959 - Archbishop Makarios becomes the first President of Cyprus
• 1972 - A chartered Spanish airliner crashes on takeoff from the Canary Islands, killing 155
• 1974 - Malta becomes a republic
• 1977 - A United States government DC-3 crashes after takeoff at Evansville, Indiana, killing 29, including the University of Evansville basketball team
• 1978 - First Susan B. Anthony dollar enters circulation
• 1981 - General Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland
• 1996 - Kofi Annan elected as Secretary-General of the United Nations
• 2000 - The so-called "Texas 7" escape from a Texas prison and go on a crime spree.
• 2001 - Parliament of India attacked by armed militants. Attempt foiled.
• 2002 - The European Union announces the addition of ten new members in Copenhagen: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The countries' membership will be effective May 1, 2004
• 2003 Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit.

• 1521 - Pope Sixtus V, religious leader (d. 1590)
• 1533 - King Eric XIV of Sweden (d. 1577)
• 1553 - King Henry IV of France (d. 1610)
• 1797 - Heinrich Heine, poet (d. 1856)
• 1798 - Joseph Walker, explorer
• 1816 - Werner von Siemens, engineer, inventor and industrialist (d. 1892)
• 1818 - Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States (d. 1882)
• 1829 - Hugo von Ziemssen, physicist (d. 1902)
• 1836 - Franz von Lenbach, painter (d. 1904)
• 1854 - Thomas Watson, telephone pioneer
• 1864 - Emil Seidel, politician, mayor of Milwaukee, Socialist vice-presidential candidate (d. 1947)
• 1874 - Josef Lhévinne, pianist (d. 1944)
• 1887 - George Polya, mathematician (d. 1985)
• 1897 - Drew Pearson, journalist, political columnist (d. 1969)
• 1903 - Carlos Montoya, guitarist (d. 1993)
• 1910 - Van Heflin, actor (d. 1971)
• 1913 - Archie Moore, world champion boxer (d. 1998)
• 1915 - Curd Jürgens, actor (d. 1982)
• 1915 - Ross Macdonald, author (d. 1983)
• 1923 - Larry Doby, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 2003)
• 1925 - Dick Van Dyke, actor, comedian
• 1927 - Christopher Plummer, actor
• 1943 - Ferguson Jenkins, Baseball Hall of Famer
• 1948 - Ted Nugent, musician
• 1950 - Tom Vilsack, Governor of Iowa
• 1953 - Bob Gainey, Hockey Hall of Famer
• 1957 - Steve Buscemi, actor (Reservoir Dogs, Fargo, The Sopranos)
• 1967 - Jamie Foxx, actor (In Living Color, Any Given Sunday, Ali)
• 1981 - Amy Lee, Evanescence frontwoman

• 1124 - Pope Callixtus II
• 1204 - Maimonides, sephardi philosopher (b. 1135)
• 1565 - Konrad von Gesner, naturalist (b. 1516)
• 1944 - Wassily Kandinsky, artist (b. 1866)
• 1961 - Grandma Moses, artist (b. 1860)
• 2001 - Leonardo Mondadori, publisher
• 2003 - Keiko, orca that starred in the Free Willy movies. (b. c.1976)

• Catholicism - Saint Lucy's day.
• In the Irish calendar the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following the Feast of Saint Lucy were observed as Quarter tense.