Template:Selected anniversaries/May 13
1812: Artist, musician, author, and poet Edward Lear born either today or yesterday.
Gilgamesh tablet grumpy about missing sections, demands high-energy literature therapy.
Writer, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer Mark Twain gives benefit to raise money for the Gilgamesh tablet's restoration.
1937: Writer Roger Zelazny born.
1713 – Alexis Clairaut, French mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist (d. 1765)
1753 – Lazare Carnot, French general, mathematician, and politician, French Minister of the Interior (d. 1823)
1857 – Ronald Ross, Indian-English physician and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1932)
1866 – Nikolai Brashman, Czech-Russian mathematician and academic (b. 1796)
1880 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.
1957 – Michael Fekete, Hungarian-Israeli mathematician and academic (b. 1886)
1985 – Police release a bomb on MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia to end a stand-off, killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.
1995 – Hao Wang, Chinese-American logician, philosopher, and mathematician (b. 1921)
1998 – India carries out two nuclear tests at Pokhran, following the three conducted on May 11. The United States and Japan impose economic sanctions on India.
2005 – George Dantzig, American mathematician and academic (b. 1914)