Dec 13 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on December 13:
1937 – Japanese forces captured the Chinese city of Nanking (Nanjing).
1941 – British forces retreated to Hong Kong island as the invading Japanese army took Kowloon and the New Territories.
1949 – Israel declares Jerusalem as its capital.
1967 – King Constantine of Greece and his family fled the country after a counter-coup failed to topple the military-backed government.
1995 – Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, was imprisoned for 14 years for subversive acts. He was released and went into exile in the United States in 1997.
1996 – The U.N. Security Council made official its selection of Kofi Annan of Ghana as the U.N. secretary-general to succeed Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
1997 – Giovanni Agnelli, heir to the dynasty that controlled the Italian car giant Fiat, died from cancer at the age of 33.
2001 – A group of armed men opened fire in India’s parliament complex. Nine people were killed and the five gunmen also died in the unprecedented attack.
2002 – The Pope accepted the resignation of Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, who was under pressure to quit over a scandal involving sexual abuse by clergy.
2003 – U.S. troops found former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in a hole in the ground behind a shepherd’s hut near his home town of Tikrit.
2007 – EU treaty of Lisbon signed in the Jeronimos Monastery.
