Today on March 13 0607 The 12th recorded passage of Halley's Comet occurred. 1519 Cortez landed in Mexico. 1660 A statute was passed limiting the sale of slaves in the colony of Virginia. 1777 The U.S. Congress ordered its European envoys to appeal to high-ranking foreign officers to send troops to reinforce the American army. 1781 Sir William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus. 1861 Jefferson Davis signed a bill authorizing slaves to be used as soldiers for the Confederacy. 1877 Chester Greenwood patented the earmuff. 1884 Standard time was adopted throughout the U.S. 1901 Andrew Carnegie announced that he was retiring from business and that he would spend the rest of his days giving away his fortune. His net worth was estimated at $300 million. 1902 In Poland, schools were shut down across the country when students refused to sing the Russian hymn "God Protect the Czar." 1902 Andrew Carnegie approved 40 applications from libraries for donations. 1908 The people of Jerusalem saw an automobile for the first time. The owner was Charles Glidden of Boston. 1911 The U.S. Supreme Court approved corporate tax law. 1915 The Germans repelled a British expeditionary force attack in France. 1918 Women were scheduled to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York due to a shortage of men due to wartime. 1925 A law in Tennessee prohibited the teaching of evolution. 1930 It was announced that the planet Pluto had been discovered by scientist Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory. 1935 Three-thousand-year-old archives were found in Jerusalem confirming some biblical history. 1941 Adolf Hitler issued an edict calling for an invasion of the U.S.S.R. 1943 Japanese forces ended their attack on the American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville. 1946 Reports from Iran indicated that Soviet tanks units were stationed 20 miles from Tehran. 1946 Premier Tito seized wartime collaborator General Draja Mikhailovich in a cave in Yugoslavia. 1951 Israel demanded $1.5 billion in German reparations for the cost of caring for war refugees. 1957 Jimmy Hoffa was arrested by the FBI on bribery charges. 1963 China invited Soviet President Khrushchev to visit Peking. 1969 The Apollo 9 astronauts returned to Earth after the conclusion of a mission that included the successful testing of the Lunar Module. 1970 Cambodia ordered Hanoi and Viet Cong troops to leave. 1970 Digital Equipment Corp. introduced the PDP-11 minicomputer. 1974 The U.S. Senate voted 54-33 to restore the death penalty. 1974 An embargo imposed by Arab oil-producing countries was lifted. 1980 A jury in Winamac, IN, found Ford Motor Company innocent of reckless homicide in the deaths of three young women that had been riding in a Ford Pinto. 1990 The U.S. lifted economic sanctions against Nicaragua. 1991 Exxon paid $1 billion in fines and for the clean-up of the Alaskan oil spill. 2002 Fox aired "Celebrity Boxing." Tonya Harding beat Paula Jones, Danny Banaduce beat Barry Williams and Todd Bridges defeated Vanilla Ice. 2003 Japan sent a destroyer to the Sea of Japan amid reports that North Korea was planning to test an intermediate-range ballistic missile. 2003 A report in the journal "Nature" reported that scientists had found 350,000-year-old human footprints in Italy. The 56 prints were made by three early, upright-walking humans that were descending the side of a volcano. 2012 After 244 years of publication, Encyclopdia Britannica announced it would discontinue its print edition. 2016 Do smiled.