Template:On this day - January 13

Henry II of Castile

• 587 – In Spain, Reccared I, King of Visigothic Hispania, declares his adherence and that of his family, together with several nobles and church dignitaries, to the Catholic faith, thereby bringing about the religious unification of Visigoths and Hispano-Romans.
• 915 – Birth of Al-Hakam II, second Umayyad caliph of the Emirate of Córdoba from 16 October 961 until his death (d. 976).
• 1333 – Birth of Henry II, King of Castile from 1366 to 1379, the first of the House of Trastámara, victor of the civil war against his brother Peter I.
• 1435 – Pope Eugene IV issues the bull Sicut Dudum, which forbids the enslavement of the Guanches of the Canary Islands, provided they have converted to Christianity.
• 1537 – In the New Kingdom of Granada (present-day Colombia), Sebastián de Belalcázar founds the village of Popayán.
• 1590 – Death of Francisco de Salinas, Spanish musician (b. 1513).
• 1625 – Death of Jan Brueghel the Elder, Flemish painter at the court of the Spanish Netherlands (b. 1568).
• 1712 – The Council of Castile approves the statutes of the Monte de Piedad, drawn up by Father Francisco de Piquer y Rodilla.
• 1750 – Ferdinand VI of Spain and John V of Portugal sign the Treaty of Madrid, which repeals the Treaty of Tordesillas on the division of the zones of navigation and conquest of the Atlantic Ocean and the New World.
• 1825 – In Cochabamba, Upper Peru proclaims its independence under the name of Republic of Bolívar (later Bolivia).
• 1854 – Death of Fructuoso Rivera, military officer, politician and first constitutional president of Uruguay.
• 1906 – A fire destroys almost the entire city of Panama.
• 1914 – Mexico suspends payments and the servicing of its foreign debt.
• 1943 – In Spain, under the Francoist dictatorship, the 1937 ban on celebrating Carnival is reiterated.
• 1955 – Spain joins the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
• 1955 – The dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza, challenges the democratic president of Costa Rica, José Figueres, to settle the dispute between the two countries with a pistol duel.
• 1964 – Fidel Castro makes a surprise trip to the Soviet Union.
• 1966 – Two islands of Chile's Juan Fernández Archipelago change their names (Robinson Crusoe, formerly called Más a Tierra, and Alejandro Selkirk, formerly called Más Afuera).
• 1997 – In Costa Rica, a total of 102 developing countries, members of the Group of 77, and China begin a three-day meeting.
• 2001 – In El Salvador, an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale causes some 944 deaths and economic losses estimated at 3 000 million dollars.
• 2017 – Death of Horacio Guarany, Argentine singer, composer and writer (b. 1925).
• 2020 – Death of Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Mexican screenwriter and filmmaker (b. 1942).