August 13th in History

Bert Lahr (born 8/13/1895) as the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz

Today in History

  • Hernán Cortés conquers the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (1521)
  • Cardinal Richelieu is appointed prime minister of France (1624)
  • French Revolution: Louis XVI of France is arrested by the National Tribunal after being declared an enemy of the people (1792)
  • The coin-operated telephone is patented in the US (1889)
  • The first near-Earth asteroid, 433 Eros, is discovered (1898)
  • Opha May Johnson becomes the first woman to enlist in the US Marine Corps (1918)
  • BMW is founded (1918)
  • East Germany closes its border with the west and begins construction of the Berlin Wall (1961)

Birthdays

  • Anders Jonas Ångström, founder of spectroscopy and namesake of Angstrom units (1814)
  • Annie Oakley, target shooter (1860)
  • Giovanni Agnelli, founded Fiat (1866)
  • John Logie Baird, television pioneer (1888)
  • Bert Lahr, played the Cowardly Lion in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz (1895)
  • Regis Toomey, actor (1898)
  • Alfred Hitchcock, filmmaker (1899)
  • Felix Wankel, engineer who developed the Wankel engine (1902)
  • Buddy Rogers, actor known as “America’s Boy Friend” (1904)
  • Gene Raymond, actor (1908)
  • Ben Hogan, golfer (1912)
  • Rex Humbard, televangelist (1919)
  • George Shearing, jazz pianist (1919)
  • Fidel Castro, Cuban president (1926)
  • Pat Harrington Jr., actor (1929)
  • Don Ho, musician (1930)
  • Joycelyn Elders, US Surgeon General (1933)
  • Mudcat Grant, baseball player (1935)
  • Dan Fogelberg, singer-songwriter (1951)
  • Danny Bonaduce, actor (1959)
  • Valerie Plame, CIA agent (1963)
  • Debi Mazar, actress (1964)
  • Midori Ito, figure skater (1969)

Deaths

  • Eugene Delacroix, painter (1863)
  • Ignaz Semmelweis, physician (1865)
  • H. G. Wells, author (1946)
  • W. O. Bentley, founder of Bentley Motors (1971)
  • Helen Mack, actress (1986)
  • Mickey Mantle, baseball player (1995)
  • Julia Child, chef (2004)
  • Phil Rizzuto, baseball player and sportscaster (2007)
  • Les Paul, musician (2009)
  • Edwin Newman, television journalist (2010)
  • Helen Gurley Brown, writer and editor (2012)
  • Kenny Baker, played R2-D2 in Star Wars (2016)

Holidays and Observances

  • Independence Day (Central African Republic)
  • International Lefthanders Day
  • Women’s Day (Tunisia)

August 13 is the 225th day of the year (226th in leap years). There are 140 days remaining until the end of the year.