On This Day, April 13: White supremacists kill dozens in Colfax massacre

April 13 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1742, George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” made its world premiere.

In 1873, a mob of former Confederate soldiers and Ku Klux Klan members killed dozens of Black militia men occupying the Grant Parish, La., courthouse after a contested gubernatorial election. The deadly confrontation came to be known as the Colfax massacre.

In 1932, Democrats at a Jefferson Day luncheon accused the Hoover administration of wrecking the economy, plunging millions into misery and engulfing the government in debt due to extravagance.

In 1943, the Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birth.

In 1964, Sidney Poitier became the first Black American to win an Oscar for Best Actor, honored for his work in Lilies of the Field.

File Photo by Alexis C. Glenn/UPI

In 1970, an oxygen tank exploded aboard Apollo 13 en route to a planned moon landing and one of the three astronauts aboard, Jack Swigert, the command module pilot, famously said, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” The mission was aborted and the craft, also carrying James Lovell, the commander, and Fred Haise, the lunar module pilot, returned safety to Earth April 17 after some harrowing moments.

In 1972, the first Major League Baseball strike ended, eight days after it began.

In 1984, Christopher Wilder, the FBI’s “most wanted man,” accidentally killed himself as police moved in to arrest him in New Hampshire. Wilder was a suspect in the deaths, rapes and disappearances of 11 young women in eight states.

In 1987, the Population Reference Bureau reported the world’s population had exceeded 5 billion.

In 1997, Tiger Woods, 21, won the Masters, the youngest golfer to accomplish that feat and the first Black American to win any of the four men’s major professional golf tournaments. Woods also won the Masters in 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2019.

Tiger Woods arrives to sign copies of his new book,

In 2005, as part of a deal to avoid the death penalty, Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty to four bombings that killed two people and injured more than 120. Among the attacks were bombings at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and two abortion clinics. Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison.

In 2009, music producer Phil Spector was found guilty of second-degree murder by a Los Angeles jury in his second trial for the 2003 slaying of Lana Clarkson, an actress and club hostess. He was sentenced to 19 years-to-life in prison.

In 2013, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis appointed eight cardinals to look into ways of reforming the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2023, Tropical Cyclone Isla made landfall in Western Australia with sustained winds of 160 mph, the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane.