On March 13

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as Pope Francis, making him the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, and the first from the Southern Hemisphere.

The Filipino singer Rachelle Ann Go won the reality talent show Search for a Star, performing a cover of Mariah Carey's "Through the Rain" in the grand final.

A mass shooting at a primary school occurred in Dunblane, Scotland, killing 16 children and a teacher and prompting tighter gun control in the United Kingdom.

The 53.85 km (33.46 mi) Seikan Tunnel opened between the cities of Hakodate and Aomori, Japan.

Claiming the right of innocent passage, the American warships Yorktown and Caron entered Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea.

One of England's worst incidents of football hooliganism occurred when supporters of Luton Town and Millwall rioted before a match at Kenilworth Road stadium.

Kitty Genovese was murdered in New York City, prompting research into the bystander effect due to the false story that neighbors witnessed the killing and did nothing to help her.

The Holocaust: Nazi troops began the final liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto in German-occupied Poland, sending about 2,000 Jews to the Płaszów labor camp (deportation pictured), with the remaining 5,000 either killed or sent to Auschwitz.

The Kapp Putsch (participants pictured), an attempted coup aiming to undo the German Revolution of 1918–1919, briefly ousted the government of the Weimar Republic.

The eruption of Ritter Island triggered tsunamis that killed up to 3,000 people on nearby islands.

Klemens von Metternich was forced to resign as the foreign minister of Austria following student demonstrations in Vienna.

German composer Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto was premiered in Leipzig with Ferdinand David as the soloist.

Napoleonic Wars: A British frigate squadron defeated a much larger squadron of French and Italian frigates and smaller vessels in the Battle of Lissa (depicted) in the Adriatic Sea.

William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus from the garden of his house in Bath, England, initially considering it to be a comet.

War of Jenkins' Ear: The British began an assault against Spanish forts in the Caribbean in the Battle of Cartagena de Indias.

Nojpetén, capital of the Itza Maya kingdom, fell to Spanish conquistadors, the final step in the Spanish conquest of Guatemala.

A Spanish mercenary army surprised a band of rebels at the Battle of Oosterweel in the Habsburg Netherlands, beginning the Eighty Years' War.