February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 321 days remaining, 322 in leap years.

Events

• 1130 - Innocent II is voted Pope.
• 1542 - Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.
• 1575 - Henry III of France is crowned at Reims
• 1633 - Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.
• 1635 - The first public school in the U.S., Boston Latin Public School , is founded.
• 1668 - Spain recognizes Portugal as an independent nation.
• 1689 - William and Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.
• 1692 - Massacre of Glencoe : About 78 Macdonalds at Glen Coe, Scotland are killed early in the morning for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange.
• 1815 - The Cambridge Union Society founded.
• 1866 - Jesse James robs his first bank.
• 1880 - Thomas Edison observes the Edison effect.
• 1881 - The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by activist Hubertine Auclert.
• 1894 - Auguste and Louis Lumière patent the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector.
• 1914 - Copyright: In New York City the ASCAP (for American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
• 1920 - The Negro National League is formed.
• 1934 - The Soviet steamship Cheliuskin sinks in the Arctic Ocean.
• 1935 - A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh.
• 1945 - World War II: Soviet Union forces capture Budapest, Hungary from the Nazis.
• 1945 - World War II: The Royal Air Force bombers were dispatched to Dresden, Germany (see Bombing of Dresden in World War II).
• 1955 - Israel obtains 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.
• 1960 - Nuclear testing: France tests its first atomic bomb.
• 1971 - Vietnam War: Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invade Laos.
• 1974 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.
• 1978 - Hilton bombing: a bomb explodes in a refuse truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing two refuse collectors and a policeman.
• 1979 - The intense February 13, 1979 Windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 1/2-mile-long section of the Hood Canal Bridge
• 1984 - Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• 1988 - 1988 Winter Olympic Games open in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
• 1990 - German reunification: An agreement is reached for a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
• 1991 - Gulf War: Two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroy an underground bunker in Baghdad killing hundreds of Iraqis civilians.
• 1996 - The Nepalese People's War began.
• 1997 - Tune-up and repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope is started by astronauts from the Space Shuttle Discovery.
• 2000 - The last original Peanuts comic strip appears in newspapers a day after Charles M. Schulz died.
• 2001 - An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter Scale hits El Salvador, killing at least 400.
• 2002 - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom gives former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani an honorary knighthood.
• 2004 - Travis Metcalfe from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovers the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093.

Births

• 1599 - Pope Alexander VII (d. 1667)
• 1682 - Giovanni Battista Piazzetta , painter (d. 1754)
• 1743 - Joseph Banks, botanist and naturalist (d. 1820)
• 1873 - Feodor Chaliapin, operatic bass (d. 1938)
• 1884 - Alfred Carlton Gilbert, gold medal winner at 1908 Summer Olympics, inventor of Erector Set (d. 1961)
• 1885 - Bess Truman, First Lady, wife of President Harry S. Truman (d. 1982)
• 1892 - Grant Wood, painter (d. 1942)
• 1903 - Georges Simenon, thriller writer (d. 1989)
• 1908 - William Dozier , American film and television producer (d. 1991)
• 1910 - William Shockley, physicist (d. 1989)
• 1913 - George Barker, British poet (d. 1991)
• 1918 - Patty Berg, American golfer
• 1919 - Tennessee Ernie Ford, musician (d. 1991)
• 1919 - Eddie Robinson, American college football coach
• 1920 - Eileen Farrell, American opera soprano (d. 2002)
• 1923 - Michael Bilandic, mayor of Chicago (d. 2002)
• 1923 - Chuck Yeager, pilot of first supersonic flight
• 1929 - Omar Torrijos, Panamanian ruler (d. 1981)
• 1930 - Ernst Fuchs, painter and graphic artist
• 1933 - Kim Novak, actress
• 1933 - Paul Biya, President of Cameroon
• 1934 - George Segal, actor
• 1938 - Oliver Reed, actor (d. 1999)
• 1939 - Beate Klarsfeld , German Holocaust investigator
• 1941 - Sigmar Polke, painter
• 1942 - Peter Tork, musician and actor (The Monkees)
• 1942 - Carol Lynley , American actress
• 1943 - Geoff Edwards, American game show host
• 1944 - Jerry Springer, television host
• 1944 - Stockard Channing, American actress
• 1944 - Bo Svenson , Swedish-American actor
• 1947 - Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University basketball coach, Basketball Hall of Famer
• 1950 - Peter Gabriel, musician
• 1954 - Donnie Moore, American baseball player (d. 1989)
• 1956 - Peter Hook, bass player for Joy Division and New Order , bass player and lead vocals for Revenge and Monaco
• 1958 - Pernilla August, actress
• 1960 - Pierluigi Collina, football referee
• 1961 - Henry Rollins, musician
• 1961 - cEvin Key, musician
• 1968 - Kelly Hu, American actress
• 1971 - Sonia, British singer
• 1974 - Robbie Williams, Pop singer
• 1977 - Randy Moss, NFL star
• 1979 - Mena Suvari, American actress

Deaths

• 1130 - Pope Honorius II
• 1542 - Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII of England (executed) (b. 1525)
• 1657 - Miles Sindercombe, attempted assassin of Oliver Cromwell
• 1660 - King Charles X of Sweden (b. 1622)
• 1728 - Cotton Mather, Puritan minister, author (b. 1663)
• 1787 - Ruđer Bošković, scientist and diplomat (b. 1711)
• 1883 - Richard Wagner, German composer (b. 1813)
• 1950 - Rafael Sabatini, author (b. 1875)
• 1951 - Lloyd C. Douglas, author (b. 1877)
• 1952 - Josephine Tey, mystery novel author (b. 1896)
• 1964 - Gerald Gardner, pagan writer (b. 1884)
• 1976 - Lily Pons, opera singer (b. 1904)
• 1976 - Murtala Mohammed, Nigerian military leader (b. 1938)
• 1989 - Wayne Hays, American politician (b. 1911)
• 1980 - David Janssen, actor (b. 1930)
• 1996 - Martin Balsam, American actor (b. 1919)
• 2000 - Charles Schulz, cartoonist, creator of Peanuts (b. 1922)
• 2002 - Waylon Jennings, country musician (b. 1937)
• 2003 - Kid Gavilan, world boxing champion and hall of famer (b. 1926)
• 2003 - Walt Rostow, US government official (b. 1916)
• 2004 - Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, Chechen leader (b. 1952)
• 2005 - Lucia dos Santos, Carmelite nun (b. 1907)
• 2005 - Maurice Trintignant, race car driver (b. 1917)
• 2005 - Nelson Briles, Major League Baseball player (b. 1943)

Holidays and observances

• 1991, 2002, 2013 Ash Wednesday
• USA, Breakup Day

External links

• BBC: On This Day

February 12 - February 14 - January 13 - March 13 -- listing of all days