THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― AUGUST 13

August 13 is the 225th day of the year (226th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 140 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Thursday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Tuesday or Wednesday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Friday or Sunday (56).

NATIONAL FILET MIGNON DAY


1521 – After an extended siege, forces led by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés capture Tlatoani Cuauhtémoc and conquer the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.  

1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Royal Navy defeats the Penobscot Expedition with the most significant loss of United States naval forces prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

1792 – King Louis XVI of France is formally arrested by the National Tribunal, and declared an enemy of the people during the French Revolution. He was later executed.

1898 – Spanish–American War: Spanish and American forces engage in a mock battle for Manila, after which the Spanish commander surrendered in order to keep the city out of Filipino rebel hands. 

1905 – Norwegians vote to end the union with Sweden. 

1906 – The all black infantrymen of the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Regiment are accused of killing a white bartender and wounding a white police officer in Brownsville, Texas, despite exculpatory evidence; all are later dishonorably discharged. (Their records were later restored to reflect honorable discharges but there were no financial settlements.) 

1942 – Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the "Development of Substitute Materials" project, better known as the Manhattan Project. 

1961 – East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin to thwart its inhabitants' attempts to escape to the West. 

1964 – Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans are hanged for the Murder of John Alan West becoming the last people executed in the United Kingdom.

1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine to enjoy a ticker tape parade in New York City That evening, at a state dinner in Los Angeles, they are awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Richard Nixon. 

1978 – One hundred fifty Palestinians in Beirut are killed in a terrorist attack during the second phase of the Lebanese Civil War. 

2004 – One hundred fifty-six Congolese Tutsi refugees are massacred at the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi. 

2008 – South Ossetia War: Russian units occupy the Georgian city of Gori. 

2015 – At least 76 people are killed and 212 others are wounded in a truck bombing in Baghdad, Iraq.

TODAY'S BIRTHS

1814 – Anders Jonas Ångström, Swedish physicist and astronomer (d. 1874)

1902 – Felix Wankel, German engineer, Wankel rotary engine (d. 1988)

1914 – Grace Bates, American mathematician and academic, algebra and probability theory (d. 1996)

1921 – Jimmy McCracklin, American blues/R&B singer-songwriter and pianist (d 2012)

1933 – Joycelyn Elders, American admiral and physician, 15th Surgeon General of the United States

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted.