December 13

December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 18 days remaining.

Table of contents

1 Events 2 Births 3 Deaths 4 Holidays and observances

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 Lhévinne, 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 Jürgens, 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

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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