On this day, Sept. 13 ...

1996: Tupac Shakur dies at a Las Vegas hospital six days after he was wounded in a drive-by shooting.

Also on this day:

  • 1788: The Congress of the Confederation authorizes the first national election and declares New York City the temporary national capital.
  • 1943: Chiang Kai-Shek becomes president of China.
  • 1948: Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine is elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first woman to serve in both chambers of Congress.
  • 1962: Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett rejects the U.S. Supreme Court's order for the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, a Black student, declaring in a televised address, "We will not drink from the cup of genocide."
  • 1971: A four-day inmates' rebellion at the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York ends as police and guards storm the prison; the ordeal and final assault claims the lives of 32 inmates and 11 hostages.

(Gary Hershorn/Reuters)

  • 1993: At the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat shake hands after signing an accord granting limited Palestinian autonomy.
  • 1998: Former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace dies at age 79.
  • 2004: Oprah gives away nearly 300 new cars to members of her studio audience.
  • 2009: At the MTV Video Music Awards, Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for best female video for "You Belong with Me" is disrupted by Kanye West, who takes the microphone to praise Beyonce's video of "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)."
  • 2018: Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, says she has notified federal investigators about information she received concerning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from a person who "strongly requested confidentiality." (The person later would be identified as Christine Blasey Ford, who alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh when they were teens.)
  • 2019: Actress Felicity Huffman is sentenced to 14 days in prison and fined $30,000 for her role in a college admissions scandal involving rich and famous families who funneled cash to fixers in order to get their kids into the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities.