On May 13
On May 13, the Human Saga records one pivotal event: Brazil abolishes slavery with the Golden Law (Lei Áurea) (1888).
On this day
On 13 May 1888 Princess Isabel, acting as regent for her father Emperor Pedro II, signed the Lei Áurea, or Golden Law, which declared slavery abolished in Brazil with immediate effect and without compensation to slaveholders.
Also this week in history (May 10 – May 16)
On 14 May 1796, the English physician Edward Jenner performed a landmark experiment in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, that established the practice of vaccination.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a secret wartime convention concluded on 16 May 1916 between Britain and France, with the assent of Imperial Russia, to define their respective spheres of influence and control in the Arab lands of the Ottoman…
On 14 May 1948, as the British Mandate over Palestine expired, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel in Tel Aviv.
On 11 May 330 CE Constantine formally dedicated the rebuilt Greek city of Byzantium as Constantinople, his 'New Rome', after years of construction on a strategic site commanding the Bosporus between Europe and Asia.
Dated to 11 May 868 by its own colophon, the Chinese Diamond Sutra is the earliest complete, dated printed book known to survive, produced by woodblock printing during the late Tang dynasty.
On 14 May 1607 roughly a hundred settlers sent by the Virginia Company of London established a fort on Jamestown Island in the Chesapeake Bay, founding the first permanent English settlement in North America.
On 14 May 1955 the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European communist states signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in Warsaw, creating the Warsaw Pact.