February 13

February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 321 days remaining, 322 in leap years.

Events

• 1130 – Innocent II is voted Pope.
• 1542 – Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.
• 1575 – Henry III of France is crowned at Reims
• 1633 – Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.
• 1635 – The first public school in the U.S., Boston Latin Public School, is founded.
• 1668 – Spain recognizes Portugal as an independent nation.
• 1689 – William and Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.
• 1692 – Massacre of Glencoe : About 78 Macdonalds at Glen Coe, Scotland are killed early in the morning for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange.
• 1815 – The Cambridge Union Society founded.
• 1866 – Jesse James robs his first bank.
• 1880 – Thomas Edison observes the Edison effect.
• 1881 – The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by activist Hubertine Auclert.
• 1894 – Auguste and Louis Lumière patent the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector.
• 1914 – Copyright: In New York City the ASCAP (for American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
• 1920 – The Negro National League is formed.
• 1934 – The Soviet steamship Cheliuskin sinks in the Arctic Ocean.
• 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.
• 1945 – World War II: Soviet Union forces capture Budapest, Hungary from the Nazis.
• 1945  – World War II: The Royal Air Force bombers were dispatched to Dresden, Germany (see Bombing of Dresden in World War II).
• 1955 – Israel obtains 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.
• 1960 – Nuclear testing: France tests its first atomic bomb.
• 1971 – Vietnam War: Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invade Laos.
• 1974 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.
• 1978 – Hilton bombing: a bomb explodes in a refuse truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing two refuse collectors and a policeman.
• 1979 – The intense February 13, 1979 Windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 1/2-mile-long section of the Hood Canal Bridge
• 1984 – Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• 1988 – 1988 Winter Olympic Games open in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
• 1990 – German reunification: An agreement is reached for a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
• 1991 – Gulf War: Two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroy an underground bunker in Baghdad killing hundreds of Iraqis civilians.
• 1996 – The Nepalese People's War began.
• 1997 – Tune-up and repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope is started by astronauts from the Space Shuttle Discovery.
• 2000 – The last original Peanuts comic strip appears in newspapers a day after Charles M. Schulz died.
• 2001 – An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter Scale hits El Salvador, killing at least 400.
• 2002 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom gives former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani an honorary knighthood.
• 2004 – Travis Metcalfe from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovers the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093.

Births

• 1457 – Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold and wife of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1482)
• 1599 – Pope Alexander VII (d. 1667)
• 1682 – Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, painter (d. 1754)
• 1743 – Joseph Banks, botanist and naturalist (d. 1820)
• 1805 – Peter Gustav Dirichlet, mathematician (d. 1859)
• 1873 – Feodor Chaliapin, operatic bass (d. 1938)
• 1884 – Alfred Carlton Gilbert, gold medal winner at 1908 Summer Olympics, inventor of Erector Set (d. 1961)
• 1885 – Bess Truman, First Lady, wife of President Harry S. Truman (d. 1982)
• 1892 – Grant Wood, painter (d. 1942)
• 1903 – Georges Simenon, thriller writer (d. 1989)
• 1908 – William Dozier, American film and television producer (d. 1991)
• 1910 – William Shockley, physicist (d. 1989)
• 1913 – George Barker, British poet (d. 1991)
• 1918 – Patty Berg, American golfer
• 1919 – Tennessee Ernie Ford, musician (d. 1991)
• 1919 – Eddie Robinson, American college football coach
• 1920 – Eileen Farrell, American opera soprano (d. 2002)
• 1923 – Michael Bilandic, mayor of Chicago (d. 2002)
• 1923  – Chuck Yeager, pilot of first supersonic flight
• 1929 – Omar Torrijos, Panamanian ruler (d. 1981)
• 1930 – Ernst Fuchs, painter and graphic artist
• 1933 – Kim Novak, actress
• 1933  – Paul Biya, President of Cameroon
• 1934 – George Segal, actor
• 1938 – Oliver Reed, actor (d. 1999)
• 1939 – Beate Klarsfeld, German Holocaust investigator
• 1941 – Sigmar Polke, painter
• 1942 – Peter Tork, musician and actor (The Monkees)
• 1942 – Carol Lynley, American actress
• 1943 – Geoff Edwards, American game show host
• 1944 – Jerry Springer, television host
• 1944 – Stockard Channing, American actress
• 1944 – Bo Svenson, Swedish-American actor
• 1947 – Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University basketball coach, Basketball Hall of Famer
• 1950 – Peter Gabriel, musician
• 1954 – Donnie Moore, American baseball player (d. 1989)
• 1956 – Peter Hook, bass player for Joy Division and New Order, bass player and lead vocals for Revenge and Monaco
• 1958 – Pernilla August, actress
• 1960 – Pierluigi Collina, football referee
• 1961 – Henry Rollins, musician
• 1961 – cEvin Key, musician
• 1968 – Kelly Hu, American actress
• 1971 – Sonia, British singer
• 1974 – Robbie Williams, Pop singer
• 1975 – Iván González, Puertorican DJ & Musician
• 1977 – Randy Moss, NFL star
• 1979 – Mena Suvari, American actress

Deaths

• 1130 – Pope Honorius II
• 1542 – Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII of England (executed) (b. 1525)
• 1571 – Benvenuto Cellini, Italian artist (b. 1500)
• 1657 – Miles Sindercombe, attempted assassin of Oliver Cromwell
• 1660 – King Charles X of Sweden (b. 1622)
• 1728 – Cotton Mather, Puritan minister, author (b. 1663)
• 1787 – Ruđer Bošković, scientist and diplomat (b. 1711)
• 1883 – Richard Wagner, German composer (b. 1813)
• 1950 – Rafael Sabatini, author (b. 1875)
• 1951 – Lloyd C. Douglas, author (b. 1877)
• 1952 – Josephine Tey, English author (b. 1896)
• 1964 – Gerald Gardner, pagan writer (b. 1884)
• 1976 – Lily Pons, soprano (b. 1904)
• 1976 – Murtala Mohammed, Nigerian military leader (b. 1938)
• 1989 – Wayne Hays, American politician (b. 1911)
• 1980 – David Janssen, actor (b. 1930)
• 1996 – Martin Balsam, American actor (b. 1919)
• 2000 – Charles Schulz, cartoonist, creator of Peanuts (b. 1922)
• 2002 – Waylon Jennings, country musician (b. 1937)
• 2003 – Kid Gavilan, world boxing champion and hall of famer (b. 1926)
• 2003 – Walt Rostow, U.S. government official (b. 1916)
• 2004 – Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, Chechen leader (b. 1952)
• 2005 – Lucia dos Santos, Carmelite nun (b. 1907)
• 2005 – Maurice Trintignant, race car driver (b. 1917)
• 2005 – Nelson Briles, Major League Baseball player (b. 1943)

Holidays and observances

• 1991, 2002, 2013 Ash Wednesday
• USA, Breakup Day

External links

• BBC: On This Day

February 12 – February 14 – January 13 – March 13 — listing of all days