December 13

December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 16 days remaining.

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 concluded with the Japanese victory and the fall of the city which became the site of extreme atrocities for the following 3 months.
• 1949 - Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem
• 1959 - Archbishop Makarios[?] becomes first President of Cyprus
• 1974 - Malta becomes a republic
• 1978 - First Susan B. Anthony dollar
• 1981 - General Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland
• 1996 - Kofi Annan chosen as Secretary General of the United Nations.
• 2000 - The so-called "Texas 7[?]" escape from a Texas prison and go on a crime spree.

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, ingenieur, inventor and industrialist (+ 1892)
• 1818 - Mary Todd Lincoln[?], First Lady (+ 1882)
• 1829 - Hugo von Ziemssen[?], physicist (+ 1902)
• 1836 - Franz von Lenbach[?], painter (+ 1904)
• 1854 - Thomas Watson[?], telephone pioneer
• 1886 - Diego Rivera, artist, muralist (+ 1957)
• 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
• 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

Deaths

• 1565 - Konrad von Gesner, naturalist
• 1944 - Wassily Kandinsky, artist
• 1961 - Grandma Moses, artist

Holidays and observances

• Catholicism - Saint Lucy's day

December 12 - December 14 - November 13 - January 13 -- listing of all days

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