March 13 in History
2013 –Pope Francis succeeds Pope Benedict XVI as the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 17, 1936, was elected the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church on this day in 2013, succeeding Benedict XVI who resigned on February 28, 2013. Jorge, then Archbishop of Buenos Aires was elected on the fifth ballot by 115 cardinal-electors convened as a papal conclave to elect a pope. He took the pontifical name of Francis in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi, becoming the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first from outside Europe since Gregory III, a Syrian who reigned in the 8th century. Bergoglio worked for a time as a bouncer and a janitor as a young man before training to be a chemist and working as a technician in a food science laboratory. After recovering from a severe illness, he was inspired to join the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1958. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, and from 1973 to 1979 was the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina. He became the archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. Throughout his public life, Francis has been noted for his humility, emphasis on God’s mercy, international visibility as pope, concern for the poor, and commitment to interreligious dialogue.
-Wikipedia