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.