FRIDAY, March 13, 2026

624-Battle of Badr: Muhammad's Muslim forces win a significant victory over the Meccan army

1781-William Herschel sees what he thinks is a "comet" but actually discovers the planet Uranus

1877-American Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs after inventing them at age 15

1884-Siege of Khartoum, Sudan, begins by Mahdist forces and lasts 10 months

1903-Fall of the Sokoto Caliphate in Northern Nigeria, British claim supremacy over 500,000 square miles

1930-Clyde Tombaugh announces the discovery of Pluto at Lowell Observatory

2003-The Journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints of an upright-walking human have been found in Italy

2019-U.S. grounds all Boeing 737 Max aircraft after bans by other countries following the plane type's second crash in Ethiopia