Today in History: Tanzania became first country to recognise the Nigerian secessionist state of Biafra

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 13:

1913 – An assassination attempt on King Alfonso XIII of Spain by an anarchist failed.

1964 – Sidney Poitier became the first black actor to win an Oscar, taking the best actor award for “Lilies of the Field”.

1966 – Abdul Salam Arif, president of Iraq, was killed in a helicopter crash.

1968 – Tanzania became the first country to recognise the Nigerian secessionist state of Biafra as a sovereign nation.

1975 – A military coup in Chad overthrew President Ngarta Tombalbaye, who was killed. Felix Malloum took over at the head of a seven-member junta.

1975 – Christian militiamen in Lebanon killed 22 Palestinians on a bus in the Ain er-Rummaineh suburb of Beirut. This attack is generally accepted as the starting point of the Lebanese Civil War.

1994 – Belgian paratroopers evacuated the last foreigners from Kigali as rebels tightened their grip around the Rwandan capital, ravaged by days of tribal bloodshed.

1999 – A U.S. judge sentenced assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian to 10-25 years in prison following his second-degree murder conviction.

2002 – Former Serbian interior minister and accused war criminal Vlajko Stojiljkovic died two days after shooting himself outside the Yugoslav parliament, hours after it passed a law to send him and other suspects to a U.N. court.

2011 – Thailand breaks world record for water pistol fight.

2016 – Syria holds parliamentary election, denounced by opponents of President Bashar al-Assad and Western powers as illegitimate.

(Reuters)