| 17011 | February 13 | Event | 1861 – In Gaeta the capitulation of the fortress decreeing the end of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies is signed. |
| 17012 | February 13 | Event | 1867 – Work begins on the covering of the Senne, burying Brussels's primary river and creating the modern central boulevards. |
| 17013 | February 13 | Event | 1880 – Thomas Edison observes the Edison effect. |
| 17014 | February 13 | Event | 1881 – The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert. |
| 17015 | February 13 | Event | 1913 – The 13th Dalai Lama proclaims Tibetan independence following a period of domination by Manchu Qing dynasty and initiated a period of almost four decades of independence. |
| 17016 | February 13 | Event | 1914 – Copyright: In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members. |
| 17017 | February 13 | Event | 1920 – The Negro National League is formed. |
| 17018 | February 13 | Event | 1931 – New Delhi becomes the capital of British Raj. |
| 17019 | February 13 | Event | 1934 – The Soviet steamship Chelyuskin sinks in the Arctic Ocean. |
| 17020 | February 13 | Event | 1935 – A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh. |
| 17021 | February 13 | Event | 1945 – World War II: The siege of Budapest concludes with the unconditional surrender of German and Hungarian forces to the Red Army. |
| 17022 | February 13 | Event | 1945 – World War II: Royal Air Force bombers are dispatched to Dresden, Germany to attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment. |
| 17023 | February 13 | Event | 1951 – Korean War: Battle of Chipyong-ni, which represented the "high-water mark" of the Chinese incursion into South Korea, commences. |
| 17024 | February 13 | Event | 1954 – Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game. |
| 17025 | February 13 | Event | 1955 – Israel obtains four of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls. |
| 17026 | February 13 | Event | 1960 – With the success of a nuclear test codenamed "Gerboise Bleue", France becomes the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons. |
| 17027 | February 13 | Event | 1960 – Black college students stage the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. |
| 17028 | February 13 | Event | 1961 – An allegedly 500,000-year-old rock is discovered near Olancha, California, US, that appears to anachronistically encase a spark plug. |
| 17029 | February 13 | Event | 1967 – American researchers discover the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain. |
| 17030 | February 13 | Event | 1971 – Vietnam War: Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invade Laos. |
| 17031 | February 13 | Event | 1978 – Hilton bombing: a bomb explodes in a refuse truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing two refuse collectors and a policeman. |
| 17032 | February 13 | Event | 1979 – An intense windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 1/2-mile-long section of the Hood Canal Bridge. |
| 17033 | February 13 | Event | 1981 – A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky. |
| 17034 | February 13 | Event | 1982 – The Río Negro Massacre takes place in Guatemala. |
| 17035 | February 13 | Event | 1983 – A cinema fire in Turin, Italy, kills 64 people. |
| 17036 | February 13 | Event | 1984 – Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. |
| 17037 | February 13 | Event | 1990 – German reunification: An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany. |
| 17038 | February 13 | Event | 1991 – Gulf War: Two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroy the Amiriyah shelter in Baghdad. Allied forces said the bunker was being used as a military communications outpost, but over 400 Iraqi civilians inside were killed. |
| 17039 | February 13 | Event | 2000 – The last original "Peanuts" comic strip appears in newspapers one day after Charles M. Schulz dies. |
| 17040 | February 13 | Event | 2001 – An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale hits El Salvador, killing at least 400. |