February 13
Today is
World Radio Day. Really? Ya want me,
ME, to celebrate
radio?! Nice try. Fuck you, radio.
Events
1322 – The central tower of
Ely Cathedral collapses on the night of 12th–13th.
1542 –
Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.
1633 –
Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the
Inquisition.
1689 –
William and
Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.
1867 – Work begins on the
covering of the Senne, burying Brussels's primary river and creating the modern central boulevards.
1880 – Thomas Edison observes the
Edison effect.
1913 – The
13th Dalai Lama proclaims Tibetan independence following a period of domination by Manchu Qing dynasty and initiated a period of
almost four decades of independence.
1914 – Copyright: In New York City the
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
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: Royal Air Force bombers are dispatched to Dresden, Germany to
attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment.
1954 –
Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game.
1955 – Israel obtains four of the seven
Dead Sea Scrolls.
1960 – With the success of a nuclear test codenamed "
Gerboise Bleue", France becomes the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons.
1960 – Black college students stage the first of the
Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee.
1961 -
Frank Sinatra launched his own record label,
Reprise Records, in order to allow more artistic freedom for his own recordings. Hence, he garnered the nickname “The Chairman of the Board.” One of the label’s founding principles under Sinatra’s leadership was that each artist would have full creative freedom, and, at some point, complete ownership of their work.
1961 – An allegedly
500,000-year-old rock is discovered near Olancha, California, US, that appears to anachronistically encase a spark plug.
1967 – American researchers discover the
Madrid Codices by
Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain.
1970 - On this day, Friday the 13th,
Black Sabbath released their debut
self-titled studio album on Vertigo records in the UK. Peaking at No.8 on the charts, the album has been recognized as the first main album to be credited with the development of the
heavy metal genre.
1979 – An intense
windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 1/2-mile-long section of the
Hood Canal Bridge.
1981 – A
series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.
1982 - The marble slab was stolen from the grave of
Lynyrd Skynyrd's singer
Ronnie Van Zant, police found it two weeks later in a dried up river bed.
1983 – Two US Marshals are killed in a shootout with tax protester
Gordon Kahl (<--Interesting read.) in Medina, North Dakota.
1990 –
German reunification: An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
2004 – The
Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star
BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
2007 -
Rod Stewart was paid $1,000,000 when he performed at a billionaire's birthday bash. Stewart was booked to play a half-hour gig to help
Steve Schwarzman celebrate his 60th birthday held at New York's
Park Avenue Armory.
2008 – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the
Indigenous Australians and the
Stolen Generations.
2011 – For the first time in more than 100 years the
Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, are able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855.
Births
1885 – Bess Truman (35th FLOTUS); 1891 – Grant Wood

; 1919 – Tennessee Ernie Ford♪ ♫; 1920 – Boudleaux Bryant♪ ♫(wrote "
Rocky Top", Nazareth hit "
Love Hurts", Everly Bros hits "
All I Have to Do Is Dream", "
Bye Bye Love" et al); 1923 – Chuck Yeager

; 1932 –
Susan Oliver; 1933 – Kim Novak; 1934 – George Segal; 1938 – Oliver Reed; 1941 – Bo Svenson; 1942 – Carol Lynley; 1942 – Peter Tork

(The Monkees); 1943 - Bill Szymczyk♪ ♫; 1944 – Stockard Channing; 1944 – Jerry Springer ("Jerr-EE!, Jerr-EE!, Jerr-EE!"); 1947 – Stephen Hadley; 1947 – Mike 'Coach K' Krzyzewski; 1947 – Kevin Bloody Wilson♪ ♫; 1950 – Peter Gabriel♪ ♫(Genesis); 1951 – David Naughton (
An American Werewolf In London, Dr. Pepper commercials); 1952 – Ed Gagliardi

(Foreigner); 1955 – Scott Smith

(Loverboy); 1956 – Peter Hook

(Joy Division); 1957 – Tony Butler

(Big Country); 1961 – Henry Rollins♪ ♫(Black Flag, Rollins Band); 1966 – Neal McDonough (
Band Of Brothers, Desperate Housewives, Suits); 1974 – Robbie Williams♪ ♫; 1976 – Feist♪ ♫; 1979 – Mena Suvari (
American Beauty, American Pie movies)
Deaths
1542 – Catherine Howard ("
Hassaaaaan chop!"; 1728 – Cotton Mather; 1818 – George Rogers Clark; 1883 – Richard Wagner♪ ♫; 1976 – Lily Pons♪ ♫; 1996 – Martin Balsam; 2002 – Waylon 'Watasha' Jennings♪ ♫; 2014 – Ralph Waite (
The Waltons, NCIS); 2016 – Antonin Scalia