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From Wikipedia's newest articles:

• ... that Friedrich Guggenberger's U-81 sank the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (pictured) with a single torpedo?
• ... that association footballers Jimmy Willis and Steve Finnan are the only players to have scored in the top five divisions of English league football?
• ... that Lakshmisha's 16th century Kannada writing, the Jaimini Bharata, focuses on the horse sacrifice chapter of the Hindu epic Mahābhārata?
• ... that in addition to providing cargo service to Ascension Island, the freighter MV Ascension also helped researchers study its green sea turtle population?
• ... that in 1838, Philip Kelland became the first English-born and wholly English-educated mathematician to hold the chair of Professor of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh?
• ... that American manufacturing executive Chris J. Lee left the business of making air springs, elastomers, rate controls, rope isolators and solenoid valves to run for Congress?
  

• An earthquake (epicenter shown in map) measuring 7.9 M_w strikes Sichuan, China with over ten thousand people reported dead.
• Sudan cuts diplomatic relations with Chad, blaming it for helping rebels from Darfur to launch an attack on Sudan's capital, Khartoum.
• An international relief operation begins after Cyclone Nargis strikes Burma, with at least 100,000 people reported killed or missing. The Burmese military regime conducts a constitutional referendum days after the cyclone's strike.
• A tornado outbreak in Oklahoma and Missouri, United States kills at least 23 people.
• Skirmishes between supporters of Lebanon's government and the opposition erupt in Beirut.

May 13: Rotuma Day in Fiji

• 1619 – Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt was executed in The Hague after having been accused of treason.
• 1846 – The United States declared war on Mexico after a series of disputes in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, starting the Mexican–American War.
• 1848 – Maamme, the national anthem of Finland written by German composer Fredrik Pacius and Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, was performed for the first time.
• 1888 – Isabel the Redeemer (pictured) signed the Lei Áurea into law, formally abolishing slavery in Brazil.
• 1912 – The Royal Flying Corps (later the Royal Air Force) was established in the United Kingdom.
• 1917 – Our Lady of Fatima: Ten-year-old Lúcia Santos and her siblings Francisco and Jacinta Marto reportedly began experiencing a Marian apparition near Fátima, Portugal.
• 1969 – Chinese-Malay race riots began in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, leaving at least 190 people dead, and leading the government to declare a state of emergency and suspend Parliament until 1971.

More events: May 12 – May 13 – May 14