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Today in History ~ March 13
Events1519 - Cortez lands in Mexico
1569 - Battle of Jarnac, Count of Anjou defeats Huguenots
1634 - Academie Francaise opens
1639 - Cambridge College renamed Harvard for clergyman John Harvard
1656 - Jews are denied the right to build a synagogue in New Amsterdam
1677 - Massachusetts gains title to Maine for $6,000
1781 - Sir William Herschel sees "comet" (really discovered Uranus)
1797 - Cherubini's opera "Medee," premieres in Paris
1835 - Charles Darwin departs Valparaiso for Andes crossing
1846 - Friedrich Hebbel's "Maria Magdalena," premieres in Konigsberg
1852 - "Uncle Sam" made his debut as a cartoon character in the New York Lantern.
1861 - Jefferson Davis signs bill authorizing use of slaves as soldiers in the Confederate Army
1868 - The U.S. Senate began impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson on charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors." He was acquitted by one vote. [H]
1869 - Arkansas legislature passes anti-Klan law
1884 - Siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins
1884 - US adopts Standard Time
1887 - Chester Greenwood of Maine received a patent for earmuffs.
1888 - Great Blizzard of 1888 rages
1913 - Kansas legislature approved censorship of motion pictures
1915 - Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson tries to catch a baseball dropped from an airplane, but the pilot substituted a grapefruit
1921 - Mongolia (formerly Outer Mongolia) declares independence from China
1922 - George Bernard Shaws "Back to Methusaleh V," premieres in NYC
1923 - Lee de Forest demonstrates his sound-on-film moving pictures (NYC)
1925 - A law went into effect in Tennessee prohibiting the teaching of evolution.
1928 - Rudolph Friml's musical "Three Musketeers," premieres in NYC
1930 - Clyde Tombaugh announces discovery of Pluto at Lowell Observatory
1933 - In the depths of the Great Depression, banks throughout the United States began to re-open after a weeklong bank holiday declared by President Roosevelt in a successful effort to stop runs on bank assets.
1933 - Josef Goebbels becomes Nazi minister of Information & Propaganda
1935 - Driving tests introduced in Great Britain
1943 - A plot by disillusioned German officers to kill Hitler by blowing up his plane during Smolensk-Rastenburg flight failed.
1944 - Britain suspends travel between Ireland and Britain [H]
1945 - Queen Wilhelmina returns to Netherlands
1947 - "Brigadoon" opens at Ziegfeld Theater NYC for 581 performances
1951 - Israel demands DM 6.2 billion compensation from Germany
1954 - Viet Minh General Giap opens assault on Dien Bien Phu
1957 - Bloody battles after anti-Batista demonstration in Havana, Cuba
1960 - NFL's Chicago Cardinals moves to St Louis
1961 - Pablo Picasso (79) marries his model Jacqueline Rocque (37)
1964 - In a notorious case, 38 residents of a New York neighborhood failed to respond to the cries of Kitty Genovese, 28, as she was being stabbed to death.
1969 - The Apollo 9 astronauts splashed down, ending a mission that included the successful testing of the Lunar Module.
1974 - The oil-producing Arab countries agreed to lift their five-month embargo on petroleum sales to the United States. The embargo, during which gasoline prices soared 300 percent, was in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel during the Oct. 1973 Middle East War.
1975 - Bernard Slade's "Same Time, Next Year," premieres in NYC
1979 - European Monetary System is established, ECU created
1980 - A jury in Winamac, Ind., found Ford Motor Co. innocent of reckless homicide in the fiery deaths of three young women riding in a Ford Pinto.
1980 - Ford Motor Chairman Henry Ford II announced he was stepping down.
1981 - Attempt on Pope John Paul II by Mehemet Ali Agca
1982 - Ice Dance Championship at Copenhagen won by Torvill & Dean (GRB)
1982 - Men's Fig Skating Champions in Copenhagen won by Scott Hamilton (USA)
1983 - "Woman of the Year" closes at Palace Theater NYC after 770 performances
1985 - Funeral services held for Konstantin Chernenko (Moscow)
1987 - John Gotti is acquitted of racketeering
1989 - The Food and Drug Administration quarantined all fruit imported from Chile after traces of cyanide were found in two Chilean grapes.
1990 - President Bush lifted a five-year-old trade embargo against Nicaragua.
1990 - The Soviet Congress of People's Deputies formally ended the Communist Party's monopoly rule, establishing a presidential system and giving Mikhail Gorbachev broad new powers.
1991 - President George W. Bush, during a visit to Ottawa, Canada, warned Iran against seizing Iraqi territory in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.
1991 - Exxon Corp. agreed to pay a $100 million criminal fine and more than $900 million in civil damages in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The deal fell apart when the Alaska House rejected it. A new settlement was reached later.
1992 - More than 500 people were killed when a powerful earthquake hit northeastern Turkey.
1992 - The U.N. Security Council stood firm in its demand that Iraq comply totally with Gulf War cease-fire resolutions, rebuffing an appeal for leniency from Saddam Hussein's special envoy, deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.
1993 - An "unprecedented" winter storm blasts the eastern part of the nation from Dixie north to Canada--crippling travel, causing power failures, floods and tornadoes, and killing dozens of people.
1994 - The president of the independent black homeland of Bophuthatswana was deposed after repeatedly changing his mind about allowing his nation to participate in the upcoming South African elections. South Africa took direct control of the area.
1995 - Istanbul police shoot dead 16 Alawitische demonstrators
1996 - Thomas Hamilton, a gun collector opened fire on a kindergarten class in Dunblane, Scotland--killing 16 children, their teacher and then himself.
1996 - Liggett, the fifth-biggest tobacco company, broke ranks with its rivals and settled a class-action cancer lawsuit.
1996 - World leaders--including President Clinton, Russia's Boris Yeltsin, King Hussein of Jordan and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat--met in Cairo, Egypt, to reaffirm the Middle East peace process.
1997 - A Jordanian soldier fired on Israeli junior high school girls on a field trip, killing seven of them. (The soldier, Cpl. Ahmed Daqamseh, was later sentenced by a military court to life in prison.)
1997 - In a southern Egyptian village, four masked militants shot and killed 14 people before escaping.
1998 - Sgt. Maj. Gene McKinney, the first black ever to serve as sergeant major of the Army, was acquitted by a military jury of all sex charges filed against him. He was, however, convicted of coaching a witness and was reduced one rank and reprimanded.
1999 -A fight for the heavyweight boxing championship of the world -- between American Evander Holyfield and Lennex Lewis of Britain -- ended in a draw, although most fans and boxing officials felt Lewis had clearly won.
2000 - A quarter century after the end of the Vietnam War, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen arrived in Hanoi to push the pace of reconciliation.
2000 - The Tribune Co. and the Times Mirror Co., two of the nation's oldest and largest newspapers, announced they would merge.
2001 - Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national who was arrested with a carload of explosives just before New Year's Eve 1999, went on trial in Los Angeles on charges of plotting to bomb Seattle and other U.S. cities during the millennium celebrations. (He was convicted of terrorism the following month.)
2001 - France announced its first case of foot-and-mouth disease, prompting the U.S. Department of Agriculture to suspend imports animals or animal products from all 15 European Union countries to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease.
Birthdays Today
1599 - Johannes Berchmans, Dutch Jesuit/saint
1733 - Joseph Priestly, England, clergyman/scientist (discovered oxygen)
1741 - Jozef II, arch duke of Austria/RC German emperor (1765-90)
1744 - David Allan, Scottish painter
1752 - Josef Reicha, composer
1764 - Charles Earl Grey, (Whig), British PM (1830-34)
1798 - Abigail Fillmore (Powers) (U.S. First Lady, wife of 13th President Millard Fillmore; instituted the White House library)
1860 - Hugo Wolf (composer)
1872 - Oswald Garrison Villard, American journalist
1908 - Walter Annenberg, Milwaukee, publisher (Triangle-TV Guide)/Amb to GB
1910 - Sammy Kaye (bandleader: Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye: Too Young, "A" - You're Adorable, Harbor Lights)
1911 - L[aFayette] Ron Hubbard, sci-fi writer/scientologist (Dianetics)
1913 - William J Casey, headed CIA during Iran Contra scandal (1981-87)
1914 - Bobby Haggart (musician: bass: groups: Bob Cats; Peanuts Hucko's Pied Piper Quintet, Lawson-Haggart Jazz Band, composer)
1916 - Ina Ray Hutton (tap dancer; Ziegfeld Follies; pianist, bandleader; singer: Every Man a King; actress: Big Broadcast of '36, Ever Since Venus)
1918 - Tessie O'Shea (actress, singer)
1919 - Ed Pellagrini (baseball)
1926 - Roy Haynes (modern jazz drummer, bandleader: Hip Ensemble)
1930 - Liz Anderson (Haaby) (country singer, songwriter: Pick of the Week, The Fugitive, Ride, Ride, Ride; mother of Lynn Anderson)
1930 - Peter Breck (actor: Benji, Highway 61, Shock Corridor)
1931 - Rosalind Elias, Lowell Mass, mezzo-soprano
1932 - Jan Howard (country singer: The One You Slip Around With, Evil on Your Mind, My Son; toured with Carter sisters)
1932 - Ordell Braase (football: Baltimore Colts DE: Super Bowl III)
1933 - Mike Stoller (record producer, songwriter with Jerry Leiber: Smokey Joe's Cafe, Up on the Roof, On Broadway, score for Jailhouse Rock)
1934 - Dick Katz (pianist, composer)
1938 - Joseph Bellino (football: Heisman Trophy Winner: Navy [1960])
1939 - Neil Sedaka (songwriter, singer: Oh! Carol, The Diary, Stairway to Heaven, Calendar Girl, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen, Bad Blood, Laughter in The Rain)
1949 - Donald York (singer: group: Sha Na Na)
1951 - Jerry Wallace (football)
1951 - Steve Craig (football: Minnesota Vikings TE: Super Bowls IX, XI)
1953 - Andy Bean (golfer)
1953 - Deborah Raffin (actress: Foul Play, Noble House, Death Wish 3)
1960 - Adam Clayton (musician: group: U2: Sunday Bloody Sunday, With You Or Without You)
Famous deaths
1569 - Louis Conde, French prince/co-leader of Hugenot, dies in battle
1716 - Georg Gabriel Schutz, composer, dies at 46
1881 - Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, assassinated at 62 [H]
1901 - Benjamin Harrison, 23rd pres (1889-1893), dies in Indianapolis at 67
1906 - Susan B[rownell] Anthony, American suffragist, dies at 85
1938 - Clarence S Darrow, Scopes Monkey Trial attorney, dies in Chicago at 80
1951 - Alfred Hugenberg, German RC pres-dir of Krupp/media magnate, dies
1964 - Kitty Genovese, stabbed to death in Queens while 40 neighbors look on, hear her screams, do nothing
1971 - Rockwell Kent, US artist/painter/illustrator, dies at 8
1987 - Gerald Moore, England, pianist (Am I Too Loud), dies at 87
1990 - Bruno Bettelhelm, Austrian/US psychoanalyst, commits suicide at 86
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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