http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Feb 13, 1633: Galileo in Rome for Inquisition
On this day in 1633, Italian philosopher, astronomer and mathematician Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome to face charges of heresy for advocating Copernican theory, which holds that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Galileo officially faced the Roman Inquisition in April of that same year and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. Put under house arrest indefinitely by Pope Urban VIII, Galileo spent the rest of his days at his villa in Arcetri, near Florence, before dying on January 8, 1642.
Galileo, the son of a musician, was born February 15, 1564, in Pisa, Italy. He entered the University of Pisa planning to study medicine, but shifted his focus to philosophy and mathematics. In 1589, he became a professor at Pisa for several years, during which time he demonstrated that the speed of a falling object is not proportional to its weight, as Aristotle had believed. According to some reports, Galileo conducted his research by dropping objects of different weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. From 1592 to 1630, Galileo was a math professor at the University of Padua, where he developed a telescope that enabled him to observe lunar mountains and craters, the four largest satellites of Jupiter and the phases of Jupiter. He also discovered that the Milky Way was made up of stars. Following the publication of his research in 1610, Galileo gained acclaim and was appointed court mathematician at Florence.
Galileo's research led him to become an advocate of the work of the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1573). However, the Copernican theory of a sun-centered solar system conflicted with the teachings of the powerful Roman Catholic Church, which essentially ruled Italy at the time. Church teachings contended that Earth, not the sun, was at the center of the universe. In 1633, Galileo was brought before the Roman Inquisition, a judicial system established by the papacy in 1542 to regulate church doctrine. This included the banning of books that conflicted with church teachings. The Roman Inquisition had its roots in the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, the purpose of which was to seek out and prosecute heretics, considered enemies of the state.
Today, Galileo is recognized for making important contributions to the study of motion and astronomy. His work influenced later scientists such as the English mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton, who developed the law of universal gravitation. In 1992, the Vatican formally acknowledged its mistake in condemning Galileo.
Feb 13, 1945: Dresden devastated
On the evening of February 13, 1945, the most controversial episode in the Allied air war against Germany begins as hundreds of British bombers loaded with incendiaries and high-explosive bombs descend on Dresden, a historic city located in eastern Germany. Dresden was neither a war production city nor a major industrial center, and before the massive air raid of February 1945 it had not suffered a major Allied attack. By February 15, the city was a smoldering ruin and an unknown number of civilians--somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000--were dead.
By February 1945, the jaws of the Allied vise were closing shut on Nazi Germany. In the west, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's desperate counteroffensive against the Allies in Belgium's Ardennes forest had ended in total failure. In the east, the Red Army had captured East Prussia and reached the Oder River--less than 50 miles from Berlin. The once-proud Luftwaffe was a skeleton of an air fleet, and the Allies ruled the skies over Europe, dropping thousands of tons of bombs on Germany every day.
From February 4 to February 11, the "Big Three" Allied leaders--U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin--met at Yalta in the USSR and compromised on their visions of the postwar world. Other than deciding on what German territory would be conquered by which power, little time was given to military considerations in the war against the Third Reich. Churchill and Roosevelt, however, did promise Stalin to continue their bombing campaign against eastern Germany in preparation for the advancing Soviet forces.
An important aspect of the Allied air war against Germany involved what is known as "area" or "saturation" bombing. In area bombing, all enemy industry--not just war munitions--is targeted, and civilian portions of cities are obliterated along with troop areas. Before the advent of the atomic bomb, cities were most effectively destroyed through the use of incendiary bombs that caused unnaturally fierce fires in the enemy cities. Such attacks, Allied command reasoned, would ravage the German economy, break the morale of the German people, and force an early surrender.
Germany was the first to employ area bombing tactics during its assault on Poland in September 1939. In 1940, during the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe failed to bring Britain to it knees by targeting London and other heavily populated areas with area bombing attacks. Stung but unbowed, the RAF avenged the bombings of London and Coventry in 1942 when it launched the first of many saturation bombing attacks against Germany. In 1944, Adolf Hitler named the world's first long-range offensive missile V-1, after Vergeltung, the German word for "vengeance" and an expression of his desire to repay Britain for its devastating bombardment of Germany.
The Allies never overtly admitted that they were engaged in saturation bombing; specific military targets were announced in relation to every attack. It was but a veneer, however, and few mourned the destruction of German cities that built the weapons and bred the soldiers that by 1945 had killed more than 10 million Allied soldiers and even more civilians. The firebombing of Dresden would prove the exception to this rule.
Before World War II, Dresden was called "the Florence of the Elbe" and was regarded as one the world's most beautiful cities for its architecture and museums. Although no German city remained isolated from Hitler's war machine, Dresden's contribution to the war effort was minimal compared with other German cities. In February 1945, refugees fleeing the Russian advance in the east took refuge there. As Hitler had thrown much of his surviving forces into a defense of Berlin in the north, city defenses were minimal, and the Russians would have had little trouble capturing Dresden. It seemed an unlikely target for a major Allied air attack.
On the night of February 13, hundreds of RAF bombers descended on Dresden in two waves, dropping their lethal cargo indiscriminately over the city. The city's air defenses were so weak that only six Lancaster bombers were shot down. By the morning, some 800 British bombers had dropped 1,478 tons of high-explosive bombs and 1,182 tons of incendiaries on Dresden, creating a great firestorm that destroyed most of the city and killed numerous civilians. Later that day, as survivors made their way out of the smoldering city, over 300 U.S. bombers began bombing Dresden's railways, bridges, and transportation facilities, killing thousands more. On February 15, another 200 U.S. bombers continued their assault on the city's infrastructure. All told, the bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force dropped 954 tons of high-explosive bombs and 294 tons of incendiaries on Dresden. Later, the Eighth Air Force would drop 2,800 more tons of bombs on Dresden in three other attacks before the war's end.
The Allies claimed that by bombing Dresden, they were disrupting important lines of communication that would have hindered the Soviet offensive. This may be true, but there is no disputing that the British incendiary attack on the night of February 13-14 was conducted also, if not primarily, for the purpose of terrorizing the German population and forcing an early surrender. It should be noted that Germany, unlike Japan later in the year, did not surrender until nearly the last possible moment--when its capital had fallen and its Fuhrer was dead.
Because there were an unknown number of refugees in Dresden at the time of the Allied attack, it is impossible to know exactly how many civilians perished. After the war, investigators from various countries, and with varying political motives, calculated the number of civilians killed to be as little as 8,000 to more than 200,000. Estimates today range from 35,000 to 135,000. Looking at photographs of Dresden after the attack, in which the few buildings still standing are completely gutted, it seems improbable that only 35,000 of the million or so people in Dresden that night were killed. Cellars and other shelters would have been meager protection against a firestorm that blew poisonous air heated to hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit across the city at hurricane-like speeds.
At the end of the war, Dresden was so badly damaged that the city was basically leveled. A handful of historic buildings--the Zwinger Palace, the Dresden State Opera House, and several fine churches--were carefully reconstructed out of the rubble, but the rest of the city was rebuilt with plain modern buildings. American author Kurt Vonnegut, who was a prisoner of war in Dresden during the Allied attack and tackled the controversial event in his book Slaughterhouse-Five, said of postwar Dresden, "It looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio, more open spaces than Dayton has. There must be tons of human bone meal in the ground."
Feb 13, 1920: League of Nations recognizes perpetual Swiss neutrality
The League of Nations, the international organization formed at the peace conference at Versailles in the wake of World War I, recognizes the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland on this day in 1920.
Switzerland was a loose confederation of German-, French-, and Italian-speaking communities until 1878, when the French, under Napoleon Bonaparte, unified the country as the Helvetic Republic and imposed a constitution, which was enforced by French occupation troops. Bitterly resented by the Swiss people, the French occupation ended in 1803, when Napoleon agreed to a new Swiss-approved constitution and withdrew his troops. The Congress of Vienna in 1815, which would determine Europe's borders until the outbreak of World War I nearly a century later, recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.
The Swiss considered preserving this neutrality essential to Switzerland's economic and political development. A new constitution, adopted in 1848, reinforced the neutrality principle by outlawing Swiss service in foreign armies or the acceptance of pensions from foreign governments. Neither the unification of Italy in 1861 nor the birth of the German empire in 1871 shook the loyalty of the nation's Italian or German population to Switzerland. With industrialization, fueled largely by hydroelectric power, and the construction of an efficient railroad network, Switzerland's economy continued to grow, spawning a thriving tourism industry by the end of the 19th century.
Though Switzerland maintained its neutrality during World War I, with German, French and Italian Swiss standing firm to preserve their country's solidarity, a costly military mobilization to protect the Swiss borders diverted most of the working population to war-related work and brought economic hardship. After the war ended, membership in the League of Nations—the international organization established at the Versailles peace conference—was narrowly approved by Swiss voters after a federal council opposed it. In February 1920, the League voted to recognize the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland. The League also established its headquarters in the Swiss city of Geneva, a tribute to the country's neutrality as well as its relative economic and political stability, which has continued to the present day.
Feb 13, 1905: Teddy Roosevelt discusses America's race problem
On this day in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a stirring speech to the New York City Republican Club.
Roosevelt had just won his second reelection, and in this speech, he discussed the country's current state of race relations and his plan for improving them. In 1905, many white Americans' attitude of superiority to other races still lingered. Much bitterness still existed between North and South and, in addition, Roosevelt's tenure in office had seen an influx of Asian immigrants in the West, which contributed to new racial tensions. In his argument for racial equality, Roosevelt used the rising tide raises all ships metaphor, stating that if morality and thrift among the colored men can be raised then those same virtues among whites, already assumed to be more advanced, would rise to an even higher degree. At the same time, he warned that the debasement of the blacks will in the end carry with it [the] debasement of the whites.
Roosevelt's solution to the race problem in 1905 was to proceed slowly toward social and economic equality. He cautioned against imposing radical changes in government policy and instead suggested a gradual adjustment in the attitudes of whites toward ethnic minorities. He referred to white Americans as the forward race, whose responsibility it was to raise the status of minorities through training the backward race[s] in industrial efficiency, political capacity and domestic morality. Thus, he claimed whites bore the burden of preserving the high civilization wrought out by its forefathers.
While Roosevelt firmly believed in the words of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal, his administration took only a passive, long-term approach to improving civil rights. His successors in the 20th century would take the same route--it was not until Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that government efforts to correct racial bias would be encoded into law.
Feb 13, 1991: Long-lost Twain manuscript authenticated
On this day, Sotheby's announced the discovery of a long-lost manuscript of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
The manuscript was the first half of Twain's original version, heavily corrected in his own handwriting, which had been missing for more than a century. The manuscript surfaced when a 62-year-old Los Angeles librarian finally got around to sorting through some old papers in six trunks sent to her when an aunt from upstate New York died.
Twain, it turned out, had sent the second half of the manuscript to the librarian's grandfather, James Gluck, who had solicited it for the Buffalo and Erie Library in Buffalo, New York, where Twain had once lived. At the time, Twain was unable to find the entire manuscript, and it was presumed lost for more than 100 years. However, it turned out that Twain did eventually find the manuscript and send it to Gluck.
A custody war over the manuscript ensued, with the sisters, the library, and the Mark Twain Papers Projects in Berkeley, California, squabbling over rights to the papers. Ultimately, the three parties struck a deal: The library would hold the rights to the physical papers, but all three parties would share in the publication rights. Because the novel contained previously unpublished material, and showed Twain's edits, interest in publishing the manuscript was high, and in 1995 Random House won the rights to publish the book for an undisclosed price.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
1130 - Gregorio de' Papareschi elected as Pope Innocent II
1258 - Baghdad falls to the Mongols, and the Abbasid
Caliphate is destroyed.
1349 - Jews are expelled from Burgsordf Switzerland
1503 - Disfida di Barletta - Famous challenge between 13
Italian and 13 French knights near Barletta.
1510 - Charles of Gelre conquerors Oldenzaal
1545 - Willem of Nassau becomes prince of Orange
1566 - St Augustine, Florida founded
1575 - Henry III of France is crowned at Rheims.
1578 - Tycho Brahe 1st sketches "Tychonic system"
of solar system
1601 - John Lancaster leads 1st East India Company voyage
from London
1633 - Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome
for trial before Inquisition for professing belief that earth revolves around
the Sun
1651 - Flemish missionary Joris van Geel departs to Congo
1668 - Treaty of Lisbon: Spain recognizes Portugal
1689 - British Parliament adopts Bill of Rights
1692 - Massacre of Glencoe : About 78 Macdonalds at Glencoe,
Scotland are killed early in the morning for not promptly pledging allegiance
to the new king, William of Orange.
1693 - College of William & Mary opens
1706 - Battle at Fraustadt: Swedish army beats Russia/Saksen
1741 - Andrew Bedford publishes 1st American magazine
(American Magazine)
1755 - Rebel leader Mangkubuni signs Treaty of Gianti Java
Astronomer & Physicist Galileo GalileiAstronomer &
Physicist Galileo Galilei 1777 - de Sade arrested without charge, imprisoned in
Vincennes fortress
1782 - French fleet occupies St Christopher
1786 - Abraham Baldwin selected president of University of
Georgia
1795 - 1st state university in US opens, University of North
Carolina
1799 - 1st US law regulating insurance passed, by
Massachusetts
1809 - French take Saragossa, Spain after a long siege
1815 - The Cambridge Union Society is founded.
1816 - -14] Teatro San Carlo in Naples destroyed by fire
1826 - American Temperance Society, forms in Boston
1832 - 1st appearance of cholera at London
1837 - Riot in New York due to a combination of poverty and
increase in the cost of flour
1858 - Sir Richard Burton & John Speake explore Lake
Tanganyika, Africa
1860 - King Basse Kajuara departs Boni South-Celebes
1861 - 1st military action to result in Congressional Medal
of Honor, AZ
1861 - Abraham Lincoln declared president
US President Abraham LincolnUS President Abraham Lincoln
1861 - Col Bernard Irwin attacks & defeats hostile Chiricahua Indians
1862 - -Feb 16th) Siege of Ft Donelson TN
1864 - Miridian Campaign fighting at Chunky Creek &
Wyatt, Mississippi
1866 - Jesse James holds up his 1st bank, Liberty, Missouri
($15,000)
1867 - Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube" waltz
premieres in Vienna
1880 - Work begins on the covering of the Senne, burying
Brussels's primary river and creating the modern central boulevards.
1881 - The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first
published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert.
1886 - Painter Thomas Eakins resigns from Philadelphia
Academy of Art after controversial over use of male nudes in a coed art class
1895 - Moving picture projector patented
1899 - -16°F (-27°C), Minden Louisiana (state record)
1899 - -1°F (-18°C) New Orleans, La
1899 - -2°F (-19°C) Tallahassee, Florida (state record)
1905 - -29°F (-34°C) Pond, Arkansas (state record)
1905 - -40°F (-40°C) Lebanon, Kansas (state record)
1905 - -40°F (-40°C) Warsaw, Missouri (state record)
Outlaw Jesse JamesOutlaw Jesse James 1907 - English
suffragettes storm British Parliament & 60 women are arrested
1912 - England regains cricket's Ashes
1914 - American Society of Composers, Authors &
Publishers-ASCAP forms in NYC
1920 - National Negro Baseball League organizes
1920 - League of Nations recognizes perpetual neutrality of
Switzerland
1920 - Switzerland rejoin League of Nations
1923 - 1st Black pro Basketball team,
"Renaissance," organizes
1924 - King Tut's tomb opened
1925 - US Congress makes Surpreme Court appeal more
difficult
1927 - Uprising against Portuguese regime of Gen Carmona
defeated
1929 - Cruiser Act: OKs construction of 19 new cruisers
& an aircraft carrier
1929 - Vladimir Mayakofsky's "Klop," premieres in Moscow
1932 - "Free Eats" introduces George
"Spanky" McFarland to "Our Gang"
1934 - Austrian Dollfuss government bans socialistic party
1934 - The Soviet steamship Cheliuskin sinks in the Arctic
Ocean.
1935 - 1st US surgical operation for relief of angina pectoris,
Cleveland
1935 - Bruno Hauptmann found guilty of kidnap & murder
of Lindbergh's infant
1937 - "Prince Valiant" comic strip appears; known
for historical detail
1937 - Bradman scores 123 SA v Queensland, 165 mins, 10-4s
1-6 in cricket
1937 - Maribel Vinson wins her 9th US figure skating
championship
1937 - NFL Boston Redskins move to Wash DC
1937 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Maribel
Vinson
1937 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Robin Lee
1940 - Bradman scores 209* in 161 minutes for South Aust at
the WACA
1941 - Nazi leaders attack Dutch Jewish Council
Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi
Germany Adolf Hitler 1942 - Hitler's Operation Sealion (invasion of England)
cancelled
1943 - German assault on Sidi Bou Zid Tunisia, Gen
Eisenhower visits front
1943 - Women's Marine Corps created
1945 - Allied planes bomb Dresden Germany; 135,000 die
1945 - Gerbrandy British government refuses Dutch Jewish
right to buy
1945 - USSR captures Budapest, after 49-day battle with
Germany; 159,000 die
1946 - "Duchess Misbehaves" opens at Adelphi
Theater NYC for 5 performances
1948 - Andy Ganteaume scores 112 for W Indies in only Test
Cricket innings
1948 - Ice Pairs Championship at Davos won by Lannoy &
Baugniet of BEL
1948 - Men's Figure Skating Championship in Davos won by
Richard Button USA
1948 - Wright Flyer, 1st plane to fly, returns to US from
England
1952 - Rocky Marciano defeated Lee Savold for his 39th
straight win
1953 - A's change name of Shibe Park to Connie Mack Stadium
1954 - Frank Selvey scores 100 points for Furman beating
Newberry 149-95
1955 - Israel acquires 4 of 7 Dead Sea scrolls
Heavyweight Boxing Champion Rocky MarcianoHeavyweight Boxing
Champion Rocky Marciano 1955 - KRCG TV channel 13 in Jefferson City, MO (CBS)
begins broadcasting
1955 - Patty Berg wins LPGA St Petersburg Golf Open
1956 - KYW-AM in Philadelphia Penn gives calls to WTAM (now
WWWE) Cleveland
1957 - Southern Christian Leadership Conference organizes in
New Orleans
1959 - Barbie doll goes on sale
1959 - Miro Cardon, premier of Cuba, resigns
1960 - "Beg, Borrow or Steal" opens at Martin Beck
Theater NYC for 5 perfs
1960 - "Saratoga" closes at Winter Garden Theater
NYC after 80 performances
1960 - France performs 1st nuclear test at Reggane Proving
Grounds Algeria
1961 - Frank Sinatra launches Reprise label under Warner
Bros Records
1961 - Soviet Union fires a rocket from Sputnik V to Venus
1965 - Peggy Fleming, 16, wins ladies senior figure skating
title
1965 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Peggy
Fleming
1965 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Gary
Visconti
1966 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
Singer/Actor Frank SinatraSinger/Actor Frank Sinatra 1968 -
US sends 10,500 additional soldiers to Vietnam
1969 - Mary Hopkin's Postcard album on Apple is released
1969 - Suriname government of Pengel resigns
1970 - Man-eating tiger is reported to have killed 48, 80 km
from New Delhi
1970 - NL offices begins move from Cin to SF (completed Feb
23)
1971 - 12,000 South Vietnamese troops cross into Laos
1971 - Golfing VP Spiro Agnew hits 2 tee shots into crowd,
injuring 2
1972 - "1776" closes at 46th St Theater NYC after
1,217 performances
1972 - "Grease" opens on Broadway
1972 - 11th Winter Olympic games close at Sapporo, Japan
1973 - Musical "El Grande de Coca-Cola," premieres
in NYC
1973 - US dollar devalues 10%
1974 - "Rainbow Jones" opens & closes at Music
Box Theater NYC
1974 - Dissident Nobel writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn
expelled from USSR
1974 - James 'Cool Papa' Bell is named to baseball's Hall of
Fame
Baseball player Cool Papa BellBaseball player Cool Papa Bell
1975 - Cyprus premier Denktash procliams Turkish-Cypriot Federation
1976 - Dorothy Hamill wins Olympic figure-skating gold,
Innsbruck, Austria
1976 - Peter Casserly of NZ hand-sheers record 353 lambs in
9 holes
1977 - "Guys & Dolls" closes at Broadway
Theater NYC after 239 performances
1977 - "Ipi Tombi" closes at Harkness Theater NYC
after 39 performances
1977 - "Robber Bridegroom" closes at Biltmore
Theater NYC after 145 perfs
1977 - Eric Heiden is 1st American to win world speed
skating championship
1977 - Pam Higgins wins LPGA American Cancer Society Golf
Classic
1978 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1979 - 2nd Emmy Sports Award presentation
1979 - Washington State's Hood Canal Bridge breaks up in
windstorm
1980 - Apollo Computer Inc incorporated
1980 - NZ beats West Indies by one wicket in cricket at
Dunedin
1981 - Longest sentence published by NY Times-1286 words
1981 - A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two
miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.
1982 - Dark Side of the Moon, is on charts for 402nd week
1982 - Islander's Bryan Trottier scores 5 goals against
Flyers
1983 - "Merlin" opens at Mark Hellinger Theater
NYC for 199 performances
1983 - 33rd NBA All-Star Game: East beats West 132-123 at LA
1983 - Australia beats NZ 2-0 to win World Series Cup
1983 - Donna White wins LPGA Sarasota Golf Classic
1983 - E Bernstein, Levinson & Link's musical
"Merlin" premieres in NYC
1983 - World Boxing Council becomes 1st to cut boxing from
15 to 12 rounds
1984 - 6 year old Texan Stormie Jones gets 1st heart &
liver transplant
1984 - Konstantin Chernenko succeeds Yuri Andropov as USSR
leader
1985 - Dow Jones closes at 1297.92 (record high) after
topping 1300 earlier
1985 - Polish police arrests 7 Solidarity leaders
1987 - Tigers' Jack Morris awarded $1.85 million salary by
arbitrator
1988 - 15th Winter Olympic games opens at Calgary, Canada
1988 - Christine Wachtel runs world record 800m indoor
(1:56:40)
1988 - European Community plans removal of inner boundaries
on Jan 1, 1992
1988 - Heike Dreschler long jumps world record indoor
(7.37m)
1988 - Ronald Weigel runs unofficial world record speed
walking (18:11.41)
1989 - Kidnapped Belgian Premier Vanden Boeynants freed
1989 - Salvadoran army attacks Encuentros hospital, rapes,
kills patients
1989 - Oklahoma football player Charles Thompson is charged
with selling cocaine; he is later sentenced to 2 years in prison
1990 - 50 killed at Inkatha-UDF battle in Natal, South
Africa
NBA Legend Larry BirdNBA Legend Larry Bird 1990 - Larry Bird
(Celtics) ends NBA free throw streak of 71 games
1990 - US, England, France & England give Germany OK to
reunify
1991 - Syria tells Germany they are ready to recognize
Israel
1991 - US bombs Iraqi air raid shelter, killing 334
1991 - US air raid on the Amiriyah shelter in Baghdad kills
more than 408 civilians
1992 - "Most Happy Fella" opens at Booth Theater
NYC for 229 performances
1992 - Jose Canseco repeatedly rams his Porsche into wife
Esther's BMW
1992 - West beats East 14 to 9 in Major Soccer League all
star game
1993 - Ljubow Kremljowa runs world record 1000m indoor
(2:34:84)
1993 - Merlene Ottey runs world record 200m indoor (21.87
sec)
1993 - Sergei Bubka pole vaults indoor record (6.14 m)
1994 - 44th NBA All-Star Game: East beats West 127-118 at
Minneapolis
1994 - Inna Lassovskaya jumps world record 14.9m
1994 - Johann Olav Koss skates world record 5000m 6:34,96
1994 - Ship disaster near Ranong Thailand, kills 200
1995 - Howard Stern radio show premieres in San Diego CA on
KIOZ 105.3 FM
1995 - West Indies beat NZ by innings & 332, Courtney
Walsh 13-55
1996 - Howard Stern announces he will be making the film
"Private Parts"
1996 - Rock musical "Rent," by Jonathan Larson,
opens off-Broadway
Rap Musician and Actor Tupac ShakurRap Musician and Actor
Tupac Shakur 1996 - Rapper Tupac Shakur releases his 4th studio album 'All Eyez
on Me'
1997 - "Three Sisters," opens at Criterion Theater
NYC
1997 - Discovery captures Hubble Space Telescope
2000 - The last original "Peanuts" comic
strip appears in newspapers one day after Charles M. Schulz dies.
2001 - An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter Scale hits
El Salvador, killing at least 400.
2004 - The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
discovers the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093.
2005 - 47th Grammy Awards: Here We Go Again, Maroon 5 wins
2005 - NFL Pro Bowl: AFC beats NFC 38-27
2007 - Taiwan opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou resigns as the
chairman of the Kuomintang party after being indicted by the Taiwan High
Prosecutors Office on charges of embezzlement during his tenure as the mayor of
Taipei; Ma also announces his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election.
2008 - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes an
historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations.
2009 - Unix time passed 1,234,567,890 seconds February 13,
2009 at exactly 23:31:30 (UTC).
2010 - A bombing at the German Bakery in Pune, India, kills
10 and injures 60 more.
2011 - 53rd Grammy Awards: Need You Now, Esperanza Spalding
wins
2013 - 16 Muslim insurgents are killed in an attack on a
Narathiwat military base, Thailand
2013 - 10 civilians, including 3 children, are killed by a
NATO airstrike in the Kunar Province, Afghanistan
1542 - Catherine Howard was executed for adultery. She was the fifth wife of England's King Henry VIII. 1633 - Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition. 1635 - The Boston Public Latin School was established. It was the first public school building in the United States. 1741 - "The American Magazine," the first magazine in the U.S., was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1875 - Mrs. Edna Kanouse gave birth to America’s first quintuplets. All five of the baby boys died within two weeks. 1880 - Thomas Edison observed what became known as the Edison Effect for the first time. 1889 - Norman Coleman became the first U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. 1900 - The Anglo-German accord of 1899 was ratified by Reichstag, in which Britain renounced rights in Samoa in favor of Germany and the U.S. 1914 - The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (known as ASCAP) was formed in New York City. The society was founded to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members. 1920 - The League of Nations recognized the continued neutrality of Switzerland. 1920 - The National Negro Baseball League was organized. 1935 - In Flemington, New Jersey, a jury found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of the kidnapping and death of the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was later executed for the crimes. 1937 - The comic strip "Prince Valiant" appeared for the first time. 1939 - Virginia Payne became a new character in NBC’s soap opera, "The Carter’s of Elm Street". She played the part of Mrs. Carter. 1945 - During World War II, the Soviets captured Budapest, Hungary, from the German army. 1945 - During World War II, Allied aircraft began bombing the German city of Dresden. 1947 - "Family Theatre" was heard for the first time on Mutual radio. 1955 - Israel acquired 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls. 1960 - France detonated its first atomic bomb. 1965 - Sixteen-year-old Peggy Fleming won the ladies senior figure skating title at Lake Placid, NY. 1971 - South Vietnamese troops invaded Laos. They were backed by U.S. air and artillery support. 1984 - Konstantin Chernenko was chosen to be general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Yuri Andropov. 1985 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high of 1297.92 after it topped the 1300 mark earlier in the trading session. 1990 - In Ottawa, the United States and its European allies forged an agreement with the Soviet Union and East Germany on a two-stage formula to reunite Germany. 1991 - Hundreds of Iraqis were killed by two laser-guided bombs that destroyed an underground facility in Baghdad. U.S. officials identified the facility as a military installation, but Iraqi officials said it was a bomb shelter. 1997 - Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery brought the Hubble Space Telescope aboard for a tune up. The tune up allowed the telescope to see further into the universe. 1997 - The Dow Jones industrial average passed the 7,000 mark for the first time. The day ended at 7,022.44. 1999 - A bomb exploded just outside a government-owned bank in southern Kosovo. Nine people were killed. 2000 - Charles M. Schulz's last original Sunday "Peanuts" comic strip appeared in newspapers. Schulz had died the day before. 2001 - El Savador was hit with an earthquake that measured 6.6 on the Richter Scale. At least 400 people were killed. 2002 - In Alexandria, VA, John Walker Lindh pled innocent to a 10-count federal indictment. He was charged with conspiring to kill Americans and aiding Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. 2002 - Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. 2008 - Roger Clemens denied having taken performance-enhancing drugs in testimony before Congress. 2008 - Hollywood writers ended a 100-day strike.
1866 The gang that included Jesse James and Cole Younger committed their first bank robbery in Liberty, Mo. 1867 Johann Strauss's Blue Danube waltz premiered in Vienna. 1935 Bruno Hauptmann was found guilty of murder in the Lindbergh kidnapping case. 1960 France exploded its first atomic bomb. 1974 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who won the 1970 Nobel Prize for literature, was deported from the Soviet Union. 2002 The French judge was accused of throwing the pairs skating decision to the Russians at the Olympics.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/feb13.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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