Template:History calendar/12/13

1577

• Francis Drake embarks from Plymouth, England on his circumnavigation of the world.

1642

• Aotearoa is first sighted by Europeans.

1920

• Kaysone Phomvihane, first General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party, is born in Savannakhet, French Indochina.

1937

• The city of Nanjing falls to the Japanese Empire, resulting in the Nanjing Massacre.

1938

• KZ Neuengamme is opened in Hamburg, Nazi Germany.

1949

• The genocidal State of Israel moves its capital city from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.

2003

• Saddam Hussein is captured by the United States in the Iraq War.