• January 30 - House of Lords rejects Irish Home Rule Bill
• February 1 - New York City's Grand Central Station opens as the world's largest train station.
• February 3 - The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect income tax.
• February 17 - The Armory Show opens in New York City. It displays works of artists who are to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century
• February 19 - Prizes are included in Cracker Jack candy boxes for the first time
• February 25 - The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing a graduated income tax, is ratified.
• March 12 - Canberra becomes the capital of Australia
• March 18 - George I of Greece is assassinated.
• March 20 - Sung Chiao-jen, a founder of the Chinese nationalist party (KMT) is wounded in an assassination attempt and dies 2 days after.
• March 26 - Balkan War: Bulgarian forces take Adrianople.
• April 24 - Woolworth Building opening ceremony.
• May 13 - Igor Sikorsky becomes the first person to pilot a four engine aircraft.
• May 14 - New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation which begins operations with a $100,000,000 donation from John D. Rockefeller.
• May 29 - Igor Stravinsky's ballet score The Rite of Spring is premiered in Paris
• May 30 - First Balkan War: A peace treaty is signed in London ending the war.
• July 10 - Death Valley, California hits 134 °F (~56.7 °C) which is the highest temperature recorded in the United States (as of 2003).
• October 10 - US President Woodrow Wilson triggered the explosion of the Gamboa Dike thus ending construction on the Panama Canal.
• November 5 - The insane king Otto of Bavaria is deposed by his cousin, Prince Regent Ludwig, who assumed the title Ludwig III.
• November 6 - Mohandas Gandhi is arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.
• December 1 - Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line, reducing chassis assembly time from 12 1/2 hours in October to 2 hours, 40 minutes (although Ford was not the first to use an assembly line, his successful adoption of one did spark an era of mass production).

• The Seventeenth Amendment - the direct election of senators - becomes law
• de Sitter: speed of light is independent of speed of source
• Sagnac: speed of light depends on speed of rotating platform
• Change of US presidency from William Howard Taft (1909-1913) to Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)
• Painting September Morn creates a national sensation in U.S.

Year in topic

• 1913 in film
  • The first Charlie Chaplin movies are made
  • December 29 - The first serial motion picture, The Unwelcome Throne is released by Seligs Polyscope Company.
• 1913 in literature
• 1913 in music
  • near-riot at premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring
• 1913 in sports

Births

• January 5 - Jean-Pierre Aumont, actor
• January 6 - Loretta Young, actress (+ 2000)
• January 9 - Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States
• January 15 - Lloyd Bridges, actor (+ 1998)
• January 18 - Danny Kaye, actor (+ 1987)
• January 29 - Peter von Zahn, journalist and writer
• February 4 - Rosa Parks, civil rights activist
• February 6 - Mary Leakey, anthropologist (+ 1996)
• February 11 - Lucio Diestro, composer.
• February 14 - Jimmy Hoffa, labor union leader (+ 1975 (disappeared))
• February 14 - Mel Allen, sports reporter (+ 1996)
• February 25 - Gert Fröbe, actor (+ 1988)
• February 25 - Jim Backus, actor (+ 1989)
• February 27 - Irwin Shaw, writer (+ 1984)
• March 4 - John Garfield, actor (+ 1952)
• March 13 - William Casey, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (+ 1987)
• March 18 - René Clément, French film director (+ 1996)
• March 29 - Tony Zale, world champion boxer (+ 1997)
• March 29 - R. S. Thomas, Welsh poet († 2000)
• March 30 - Richard Helms, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (+ 2002)
• March 30 - Frankie Laine, singer
• May 11 - Robert Jungk, publicist and futurologist (+ 1994)
• May 16 - Woody Herman, musician, band leader (+ 1987)
• May 20 - William Hewlett, cofounder of Hewlett-Packard
• May 26 - Peter Cushing, British actor (+ 1994)
• June 11 - Vince Lombardi, American football coach
• July 14 - Gerald Ford, American president.
• August 28 - Robertson Davies, Canadian novellist
• September 12 - Jesse Owens, American athlete
• September 15 - John N. Mitchell, former United States Attorney General and convicted Watergate criminal.
• September 29 - Trevor Howard, actor
• September 30 - Bill Walsh, Movie producer and writer.
• November 2 - Burt Lancaster, actor
• November 5 - Vivien Leigh, British actress
• November 7 - Albert Camus, writer
• November 22 - Benjamin Britten, composer

Deaths

• January 1 - Alfred von Schlieffen, German field marshal
• March 10 - Harriet Tubman, Underground Railroad conductor, anti-slavery activist
• March 22 - Sung Chiao-jen, a founder of KMT
• June 5 - Chris von der Ahe, brewer, baseball owner
• July 3 - Horatio Nelson Young, American naval hero
• October 5 - Hans von Bartels, German painter
• Alfred Russel Wallace, Welsh biologist

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes
• Chemistry- Alfred Werner
• Medicine - Charles Robert Richet
• Literature - Rabindranath Tagore
• Peace - Henri La Fontaine\n