Today in History : February 13
1542 : Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, is beheaded for adultery.
1689 : British Parliament adopts the Bill of Rights.
1692 : In the Glen Coe highlands of Scotland, thirty-eight members of the MacDonald clan are murdered by soldiers of the neighboring Campbell clan for not pledging allegiance to William of Orange. Ironically the pledge had been made but not communicated to the clans. The event is remembered as the Massacre of Glencoe.
1862 : The four day Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, begins.
1865 : The Confederacy approves the recruitment of slaves as soldiers, as long as the approval of their owners is gained.
1866 : Jesse James holds up his first bank.
1914 : The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is founded.
1936 : First social security checks are put in the mail.
1945 : The Royal Air Force Bomber Command devastates the German city of Dresden with night raids by 873 heavy bombers. The attacks are joined by 521 American heavy bombers flying daylight raids.
1949 : A mob burns a radio station in Ecuador after the broadcast of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.“
1951 : At the Battle of Chipyong-ni, in Korea, U.N. troops contain the Chinese forces’ offensive in a two-day battle.
1953 : The Pope asks the United States to grant clemency to convicted spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
1968 : The United States sends 10,500 more combat troops to Vietnam.
1970 : General Motors is reportedly redesigning automobiles to run on unleaded fuel.
1972 : Enemy attacks in Vietnam decline for the third day as the United States continues its intensive bombing strategy.
1984 : Konstantin Chernenko is selected to succeed Yuri Andropov as Party General Secretary in the Soviet Union.
Born on February 13
1599 : Alexander VII, Roman Catholic Pope.
1682 : Giovanni Piazzetta, painter (Fortune Teller).
1764 : Charles de Talleyrand, Napoleon‘s foreign minister.
1849 : Lord Randolph Churchill, English politician, Winston Churchill‘s father and member of Parliament.
1873 : Feodor Chaliapin, opera singer.
1892 : Grant Wood, painter (American Gothic).
1902 : Georges Simenon, novelist.
1910 : William B. Shockley, physicist, co-inventor of the transistor.
1919 : Tennessee Ernie Ford, country and gospel singer.
1922 : Harold “Hal” Moore Jr., US Army lieutenant general, author; led 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment at 1965 Battle of Ia Drang Valley; his best-known book, co-authored with combat journalist Joe Galloway, is “We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young,” an account of that battle.
1923 : Charles “Chuck” Yeager, American test pilot, the first man to break the sound barrier.
1933 : Kim Novak, actress.
