On this day: 13/01/-27

Octavian transfers the state to the free disposal of the Roman Senate and the people. He receives Spain, Gaul, and Syria as his province for ten years.

On this day: 13/01/532

The Nika riots break out, during the racing season at the Hippodrome in Constantinople, as a result of discontent with the rule of the Emperor Justinian I.

On this day: 13/01/1435

Sicut Dudum, forbidding the enslavement of the Guanche natives in Canary Islands by the Spanish, is promulgated by Pope Eugene IV.

On this day: 13/01/1547

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is sentenced to death for treason, on the grounds of having quartered his arms to make them similar to those of the King, Henry VIII of England.

On this day: 13/01/1793

Nicolas Jean Hugon de Bassville, representative of Revolutionary France, is lynched by a mob in Rome.

On this day: 13/01/1797

French Revolutionary Wars: A naval battle between a French ship of the line and two British frigates off the coast of Brittany ends with the French vessel running aground, resulting in over 900 deaths.

On this day: 13/01/1815

War of 1812: British troops capture Fort Peter in St. Marys, Georgia, the only battle of the war to take place in the state.

On this day: 13/01/1822

The design of the Greek flag is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.

On this day: 13/01/1833

United States President Andrew Jackson writes to Vice President Martin Van Buren expressing his opposition to South Carolina's defiance of federal authority in the Nullification Crisis.

On this day: 13/01/1840

The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.