January 16 – Srinivasa Ramanujan, a 26-year-old student in Madras, India, sends a letter to English mathematician G. H. Hardy, which would lead to him becoming one of the most important mathematician in history.
January 23 – Ottoman Empire Navy Minister Nazim is assassinated, and Prime Minister Kamil overthrown in a coup in Turkey
February 2 – Grand Central Station opens in New York
February 13 – Mary Harris Jones, the 83-year-old labor activist remembered as Mother Jones, is arrested in Charleston, West Virginia after leading a group of miners to confront Governor William Glasscock.
February 20 – The first survey stake for what would become the city of Canberra, capital of Australia, is driven into the ground by King O’Malley, Minister for Home Affairs.
February 22 -Four days after their forced resignations, former Mexican President Madero, and Vice-President Pino Suarez, are shot to death after being transported from the presidential palace to a prison.
March 4 – Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated as U.S. President
March 13 – Film stuntman and daredevil Rodman Law, ‘The Human Bullet’, attempts to become the first passenger in a manned rocket flight. The rocket explodes on the launchpad, but Law is only slightly injured.
March 18 – King George of Greece is assassinated
March 24 – The 1,740-seat Palace Theatre opens at Broadway and West 47th in New York City. Stars for the first night include Cyril Chadwick, Mabel Berra, Stacia Napierkowska and film star Ed Wynn.
March 25 – Dayton, Ohio is devastated and 400 of its people are killed as the Ohio River overflows its banks following heavy rains.
March 26 – The Battle of Adrianople is won by Bulgarian troops under the command of General Savov, who capture the historic city that once served as the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
March 26 – The Mexican Revolution begins as Venustiano Carranza and starts a rebellion against Victoriano Huerta’s government.
April 3 – The 550 foot long German dirigible Z-4 strays into French territory, runs out of fuel, and is seized by the French Army
April 11 – Albert S. Burleson, the new Postmaster General of the United States, proposes the segregation of white and black federal employees in the postal service. By the end of the year, segregation has spread throughout the department.
April 24 – The Woolworth Building, tallest in the world until 1930, opens to the public
April 25 – Mary Phagan, 15-year old pencil factory employee, is murdered in Atlanta, Georgia.
May 26 – Igor Sikorsky introduces the first four-engine airplane, the Russky Vityaz bomber.
May 29 – Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring is premièred at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris – its modernism provokes one of the most famous classical music riots in history.
May 30 – Jules Goux wins the third Indianapolis 500
May 30 – The First Balkan War formally ends with the signing of the Treaty of London. The Ottoman Turks cede almost all of their European territories to the Balkan nations.
June 8 – Sufragette Emily Davison dies after being hit by King George V’s horse Anmer at the 1913 Derby after she walks onto the track during the race.
June 12 – Billed as ‘the longest wooden bridge in the world’, the 2.5 mile long Collins Bridge opens, turning the small town of Miami, Florida into a premier resort area.
June 18 – John Ernest Williamson, whose father had invented a transparent diving bell called the photosphere, becomes the first person to take photographs from beneath the ocean surface.
June 21 – Georgia Thompson ‘Tiny’ Broadwick becomes the first woman to parachute from an airplane.
July 4 – As the Second Balkan War continues, Greek and Serbian armies are successful in routing attacking Bulgarian troops, at Kılkış, which would later become part of Greek territory.
July 15 – Britain’s House of Lords votes against approval of the Irish Home Rule bill, and Prime Minister H. H. Asquith announces that his government will present a plan for abolition of the House of Lords.
July 22 – Fifty people, mostly women and girls, are killed in a fire at the Binghamton Clothing Company factory in Binghamton, New York.
August 2 РThe first known ascent of Mount Olympus in Greece is made by Swiss mountaineers Daniel Baud-Bovy and Fr̩d̩ric Boissonnas guided by Christos Kakkalos.
August 10 – The Treaty of Bucharest is signed at 10.30 a.m., ending the Second Balkan War.
August 23 – The famous statue of The Little Mermaid, sculpted by Edvard Eriksen, is unveiled in Copenhagen.
September 15 – The first successful 4-wheel drive vehicle, the Jeffrey Quad, is delivered to the U.S. Army
October 6 – Yuan Shihkai is elected President of China by the Chinese National Assembly. He will dissolve the legislature four weeks later, assume dictatorial powers, then proclaim himself the Emperor.
October 10 – Woodrow Wilson presses a telegraph key at his desk in the White House, sending the charge that ignites dynamite to destroy the Gamboa Dike, completing the Panama Canal.
October 14 – In the worst mining disaster in British history, 439 coal miners are killed in the explosion of the Universal Colliery at Senghenydd in Wales
October 16 – The Royal Navy launches its first oil-powered warship, The HMS Queen Elizabeth
October 17 – In the worst air disaster up to this date, the German zeppelin L-2 explodes in mid-air, 600 feet over the city of Johannisthal, killing all 28 passengers and crew on board
October 21 – Camel cigarettes are introduced by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
November 9 – The ‘White Hurricane’ gale sinks 19 ships on Michigan’s Great Lakes, drowning hundreds
November 13 – British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst deliveres her ‘Freedom or Death’ speech in Hartford, Connecticut.
November 14 – The first volume of Marcel Proust’s 3,200-page novel ‘À la recherche du temps perdu’ is published as ‘Du côté de chez Swann’
November 22 – In the Battle of Tierra Blanca, Pancho Villa’s force of 5,500 men engage 7,000 federal troops under command of José Inés Salazar.
December 1 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving automobile assembly line, reducing chassis assembly time by 80 percent
December 12 – Menelik II, the Emperor of Ethiopia since 1889, dies at the age of 69
December 21 – The first crossword puzzle in history, Arthur Wynne’s ‘word-cross’, is published in the New York World
December 23 – The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve System as the central banking system of the United States