August 13

August 13 is the 225th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (226th in
leap years), with 140 days remaining.

Events

   * 1521 - Tenochtitlan (present day Mexico City) falls to conquistador
     Hernan Fernando Cortes
   * 1704 - War of the Spanish Succession - Battle of Blenheim - English and
     Austrians victorious over French and Bavarians.
   * 1940 - World War II: Battle of Britain begins - The Luftwaffe launches
     a series of attacks on British fighter bases and radar installations.
   * 1942 - Walt Disney's animated cartoon "Bambi" premiers.
   * 1960 - Central African Republic declares independence from France
   * 1960 - Chad declares independence from France
   * 1961 - German Democratic Republic closes the border between the eastern
     and western sectors of Berlin, to frustrate its inhabitants' attempts
     to escape to the West.

Births

   * 1422 - William Caxton, printer
   * 1792 - Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen - queen consort of King William IV of
     the United Kingdom
   * 1625 - Erasmus Bartholin, physician, mathematician and physicist (+
     1698)
   * 1818 - Lucy Stone, pioneering women's rights activist
   * 1820 - Sir George Grove, author, Dictionary of Music and Musicians (+
     1900)
   * 1823 - Goldwin Smith, historian and journalist (+ 1910)
   * 1851 - Felix Adler, educator, founder of the Ethical Movement (+ 1933)
   * 1860 - Annie Oakley, sharpshooter (+ 1926)
   * 1888 - John Logie Baird, television pioneer (+ 1946)
   * 1866 - Giovanni Agnelli, industrialist (+ 1945)
   * 1895 - Bert Lahr, actor (+ 1967)
   * 1899 - Alfred Hitchcock, director (+ 1980)
   * 1902 - Felix Wankel, engineer and inventor (+ 1988)
   * 1904 - Charles (Buddy) Rogers, actor (+ 1999
   * 1912 - Salvador Luria, biologist; Nobel Prize, 1969 (+ 1991)
   * 1912 - Ben Hogan, golf champion
   * 1919 - George Shearing, musician
   * 1920 - Neville Brand, actor (+ 1992)
   * 1926 - Fidel Castro, revolutionary and politician
   * 1930 - Don Ho, musician
   * 1933 - Doctor Jocelyn Elders, United States Surgeon General
   * 1935 - Jim (Mudcat) Grant, member of the Baseball Hall of Fame
   * 1948 - Kathleen Battle, opera singer
   * 1949 - Bobby Clarke, ice hockey star
   * 1951 - Dan Fogelberg, singer
   * 1952 - Herb Ritts, celebrity photographer
   * 1959 - Danny Bonaduce, actor
   * 1970 - Alan Shearer, England and Newcastle soccer player.

Deaths

   * 1863 - Eugene Delacroix, painter
   * 1946 - H. G. Wells, writer
   * 1964 - Gwynne Owen Evans and Peter Anthony Allen, murderers. The last
     people to be executed in Great Britain.
   * 1995 - Mickey Mantle, Baseball Hall of Fame member
   * 1996 - David Tudor, pianist and composer

Holidays and observances

   * Roman Empire - Vertumnalias in honor of Vertumnus