Live Aid, a global rock concert to raise money for starving people in Africa, takes place in London and Philadelphia. The mammoth events sponsor charity music concerts in years to come, from Farm Aid and Hurricane Katrina Relief to Live 8 and Live Earth.

1793. A bloody milestone during the French Revolution. Jean Paul Marat, a revolutionary writer is stabbed in his bath by Charlotte Corday. She’s executed 4 days later.

1863. In New York City, riots erupt against the Union’s military draft during the American Civil War. Over the next 3 days, more than a thousand people, many of them blacks, are killed in the violence.

1977. A power blackout leaves New York City in the dark for 25 hours, after lightening strikes north of the city. As a result, looting, vandalism and arson hit the Big Apple, already reeling from a severe financial crisis. And 1942. “Snakes. Why do we have to be snakes?” Actor Harrison Ford, best known on the silver screen as Han Solo and Indiana Jones is born in Chicago. Today in History, July 13th. Camille Bohannon, the Associated Press.