From Historynet: Today in History January 13

1397          John of Gaunt  marries Katherine Rouet.

1846          President James Polk  dispatches 

General Zachary Taylor  and 4,000 troops to the Texas Border as war with Mexico looms.

1862          President Lincoln  names 

Edwin M. Stanton  Secretary of War.

1900          To combat Czech nationalism, 

Emperor Franz Joseph  of Austria-Hungary decrees German the official language of the Imperial Army.

1919          California votes to ratify the prohibition amendment.

1923          Hitler  denounces the Weimar Republic as 5,000 storm troopers demonstrate in Germany.

1927          A woman takes a seat on the NY Stock Exchange breaking the all-male tradition.

1931          The bridge connecting New York and New Jersey is named the George Washington Memorial Bridge.

1937          The United States bars Americans from serving in the Civil War in Spain.

1943          General Leclerc's  Free French forces merge with the British under 

Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery  in Libya.

1944          Plants are destroyed and 64 U.S. aircraft are lost in an air attack in Germany.

1945          The Red Army opens an offensive in South Poland, crashing 25 miles through the German lines.

1947          British troops replace striking truck drivers.

1955          Chase National and the Bank of Manhattan agree to merge resulting in the second largest U.S. bank.

1965          Two U.S. planes are shot down in Laos while on a combat mission.

1968          U.S. reports shifting most air targets from North Vietnam to Laos.

1976          Argentina ousts a British envoy in dispute over the Falkland Islands.

1980          The United States offers Pakistan a two-year aid plan to counter the Soviet threat in Afghanistan.

1982          Air Florida Flight 90 Boeing 737 jet crashes into Washington, D.C.'s 14th Street Bridge shortly after takeoff, then plunges into the Potomac River; 78 people, including 4 motorists, are killed.

1990          In Virginia, Douglas Wilder , the first African American elected governor of a US state, takes office.