December 13 (original) (raw)
December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 18 days remaining.
Events
- 1545 - Council of Trent begins
- 1577 - Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage
- 1642 - Abel Janszoon Tasman reaches New Zealand
- 1862 - The Confederates win the Battle of Fredericksburg in the American Civil War
- 1937 - Battle of Nanjing concludes with the Japanese victory and the fall of the city which became the site of the Nanjing Massacre
- 1938 - 100 deportees from Sachsenhausen built the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg
- 1949 - The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem
- 1959 - Archbishop Makarios becomes the first President of Cyprus
- 1972 - A chartered Spanish airliner crashes on takeoff from the Canary Islands, killing 155
- 1974 - Malta becomes a republic
- 1977 - A United States government DC-3 crashes after takeoff at Evansville, Indiana, killing 29, including the University of Evansville basketball team
- 1978 - First Susan B. Anthony dollar enters circulation
- 1981 - General Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland
- 1996 - Kofi Annan elected as Secretary-General of the United Nations
- 2000 - The so-called "Texas 7" escape from a Texas prison and go on a crime spree.
- 2001 - Parliament of India attacked by armed militants. Attempt foiled.
- 2002 - The European Union announces the addition of ten new members in Copenhagen: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The countries' membership will be effective May 1, 2004
- 2003 (Iraqi time) - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit.
Births
- 1521 - Pope Sixtus V, religious leader
- 1553 - King Henry IV of France (+ 1610)
- 1797 - Heinrich Heine, poet (+ 1856)
- 1798 - Joseph Walker, explorer
- 1816 - Werner von Siemens, engineer, inventor and industrialist (+ 1892)
- 1818 - Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States (+ 1882)
- 1829 - Hugo von Ziemssen, physicist (+ 1902)
- 1836 - Franz von Lenbach, painter (+ 1904)
- 1854 - Thomas Watson, telephone pioneer
- 1864 - Emil Seidel, politician, mayor of Milwaukee, Socialist vice-presidential candidate
- 1874 - Josef Lh�vinne, pianist (+ 1944)
- 1887 - George Polya, mathematician
- 1897 - Drew Pearson, journalist, political columnist (+ 1969)
- 1903 - Carlos Montoya, guitarist (+ 1993)
- 1910 - Van Heflin, actor (+ 1971)
- 1913 - Archie Moore, world champion boxer (+ 1998)
- 1915 - Curd J�rgens, actor (+ 1982)
- 1915 - Ross Macdonald, author (+ 1983)
- 1923 - Larry Doby, Baseball Hall of Famer (+ 2003)
- 1925 - Dick Van Dyke, actor, comedian
- 1927 - Christopher Plummer, actor
- 1943 - Ferguson Jenkins, Baseball Hall of Famer
- 1948 - Ted Nugent, musician
- 1950 - Tom Vilsack, Governor of Iowa
- 1981 - Amy Lee, Evanescence frontwoman
Deaths
- 1204 - Maimonides, sephardi philosopher
- 1565 - Konrad von Gesner, naturalist
- 1944 - Wassily Kandinsky, artist
- 1961 - Grandma Moses, artist
- 2001 - Leonardo Mondadori, publisher
- 2003 - Keiko, famous orca who starred in the Free willy movies.
Holidays and observances
- Catholicism - Saint Lucy's day
See Also:
December 12 - December 14 - November 13 - January 13 -- listing of all days
January, February, March, April, May, June, July,August, September, October, November, December\n