On August 13th...

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1521 Hernando Cortés completed his conquest of the Aztecs.

1578 Duke Frans of Anjou was recognized as Protector of the Netherlands.

1624 Cardinal Richelieu was appointed Chief Minister of France by Louis XIII.

1642 Christiaan Huygens discovered Mars' south polar cap.

1645 Sweden and Denmark signed the Peace of Brömsebro.

1704 The Battle of Blenheim was fought.

1814 The Cape of Good Hope was formally ceded to the British by the Dutch.

1818 Lucy Stone, women's rights and anti-slavery advocate, was born.

1860 Sharpshooter Annie Oakley was born.

1876 The Ring of the Nibelung, a four-opera cycle by Richard Wagner, was performed for the first time at Bayreuth, Germany.

1889 William Gray patented the coin-operated telephone.

1895 Actor Bert Lahr was born.

1898 U.S. forces under Admiral George Dewey captured Manila, Philippines.

1899 Film director Alfred Hitchcock was born.

1910 Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing, died.

1912 Golfer Ben Hogan was born.

1913 Harry Brearley invented stainless steel.
1913 Mihail Christodolou Mouskos, aka Archbishop Makarios III, first President of the Republic of Cyprus, was born.

1914 Carl Wickman began Greyhound, the first U.S. bus line, in Minnesota.
1914 France declared war on Austria-Hungary.

1918 Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) was established as a public company in Germany.

1923 The Turkish National Congress selected Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Pasja as the first President of the Republic of Turkey.

1926 Cuban leader Fidel Castro was born.

1930 Singer Don Ho was born.

1932 Adolf Hitler refused President Von Hindenburg's proposal to become Vice-Chancellor of Germany.

1933 Gene Sarazen won the PGA Championship.

1944 Actor Kevin Tighe was born.

1946 Author H.G. Wells died.

1948 Satchel Paige pitched his first Major League complete game.
1948 Operatic soprano Kathleen Battle was born.

1950 Babe Didrikson-Zaharias won the LPGA World Golf Championship.

1951 Musician Dan Fogelberg was born.

1959 Discoverer V was fired into polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
1959 Construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge began.
1959 Actor Danny Bonaduce was born.

1960 The first two-way conversation via satellite was undertaken using Echo 1.
1960 The Central African Republic became an independent member of the French Community.

1961 East Germany began construction of the Berlin Wall.

1967 The film "Bonnie and Clyde" was released.

1970 Pamphlet bombs scattered African National Congress propaganda leaflets in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, and Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

1980 President Johan Ferrier of Suriname was ousted.

1981 The last episode of "The Waltons" aired on CBS-TV.

1985 Hotel chain founder J. Willard Marriott died.

1989 Two hot-air balloons crashed at Alice Springs, Australia, killing 13 persons.
1989 Payne Stewart won the PGA Championship.

1993 A hotel in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, collapsed, killing 114 persons.

1994 A train crash in Tbilsi, Georgia, killed 24 persons.

1995 Steve Elkington won the PGA Championship.
1995 Baseball player Mickey Mantle died.

1996 Microsoft released Internet Explorer 3.0.

2004 156 Congolese Tutsi refugees were massacred at the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi.
2004 The 28th Olympic Games opened at Athens, Greece.
2004 Television chef Julia Child died.

2009 Electric guitar pioneer Les Paul died.

2010 Television newsman Edwin Newman died.

2012 Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown died.

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This page was last updated on August 13, 2018.