On October 13th...

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1775 The Continental Congress ordered construction of a naval fleet.

1792 The cornerstone for the White House was laid.
1792 The first Old Farmer's Almanac was published.

1799 William Paca, signer of the Declaration of Independence, died.

1812 British General Isaac Brock was killed at the Battle of Queenston Heights.

1821 Scientist Rudolf Virchow was born.

1845 Texas ratified a state constitution.

1860 The first aerial photo in the United States was taken from a balloon over Boston.

1870 Gustav Mahler gave his first public piano concert.

1871 The Delphic Fraternity was founded as the Delphic Society at the State Normal School in Geneseo, New York.

1872 Senegalese politician Blaise Diagne was born.

1884 Greenwich was established as the universal time meridian of longitude.

1890 Delta Chi fraternity was founded by eleven law students at Cornell University.

1914 Garrett Morgan patented a gas mask.

1923 Angora (now Ankara) became the capital of Turkey.

1924 Comedian Nipsey Russell was born.
1924 Novelist Anatole France died.

1925 Comedian Lenny Bruce was born.
1925 Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Great Britain, was born.

1935 Golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez was born.

1941 Singer Paul Simon was born.

1943 Italy declared war on Germany.

1944 The U.S. 1st Army launched an offensive at Aachen.

1945 Businessman Milton Hershey died.

1947 Rock singer Sammy Hagar was born.

1957 Businessman Erle Halliburton died.

1959 Explorer VII was launched from Cape Canaveral.
1959 Singer Marie Osmond was born.

1960 The third presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy took place, with Nixon in Hollywood and Kennedy in New York City.
1960 The Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the New York Yankees 10-9 in the seventh game of the World Series to win the Major League Baseball championship.

1962 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened on Broadway, with Uta Hagen.
1962 Football player Jerry Rice was born.

1963 The word "Beatlemania" was coined after the Beatles appeared at the Palladium.

1968 Actress Bea Benaderet died.

1969 Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was born.

1974 Television personality Ed Sullivan died.

1978 President Jimmy Carter answered caller questions on National Public Radio.

1982 The International Olympic Committee restored two gold medals from the 1912 Olympics to Jim Thorpe.

1983 Ameritech Mobile Communications (now Cingular) launched the first U.S. cellular network in Chicago, Illinois.

1984 John Henry became the first thoroughbred to win $6 million.

1988 Carbon-dating tests revealed the Shroud of Turin to date no earlier than the Middle Ages.

2002 Author Stephen Ambrose died.

2016 King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand died.

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This page was last updated on October 13, 2018.