History of 13 April
1916 – The first hybrid, seed corn was purchased for 15-cents a bushel by Samuel Ramsay.
1933 – The first flight over Mount Everest was completed by Lord Clydesdale.
1941 – German troops captured Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial.
1945 – Vienna fell to Soviet troops.
1949 – Philip S. Hench and associates announced that cortisone was an effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
1954 – Hank Aaron debuted with the Milwaukee Braves.
1959 – A Vatican edict prohibited Roman Catholics from voting for Communists.
1960 – The first navigational satellite was launched into Earth’s orbit.
1961 – The U.N. General Assembly condemned South Africa due to apartheid.
1962 – In the U.S., major steel companies rescinded announced price increases. The John F. Kennedy administration had been applying pressure against the price increases.
1963 – Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds got his first hit in the major leagues.
1964 – Sidney Poitier became the first black to win an Oscar for best actor. It was for his role in the movie “Lilies of the Field.”
1970 – An oxygen tank exploded on Apollo 13, preventing a planned moon landing.
1972 – The first strike in the history of major league baseball ended. Players had walked off the field 13 days earlier.
1976 – The U.S. Federal Reserve introduced $2 bicentennial notes.
1979 – The world’s longest doubles ping-pong match ended after 101 hours.
1981 – Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke received a Pulitzer Prize for her feature about an 8-year-old heroin addict named “Jimmy.” Cooke relinquished the prize two days later after admitting she had fabricated the story.
1984 – U.S. President Reagan sent emergency military aid to El Salvador without congressional approval.
1984 – Christopher Walker was killed in a fight with police in New Hampshire. Walker was wanted as a suspect in the kidnappings of 11 young women in several states.
1990 – The Soviet Union accepted responsibility for the World War II murders of thousands of imprisoned Polish officers in the Katyn Forest. The Soviets had previously blamed the massacre on the Nazis.
1997 – Tiger Woods became the youngest person to win the Masters Tournament at the age of 21. He also set a record when he finished at 18 under par.
1998 – NationsBank and BankAmerica announced a $62.5 billion merger, creating the country’s first coast-to-coast bank.
1998 – Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep, gave natural birth to a healthy baby lamb.
1999 – Jack Kervorkian was sentenced in Pontiac, MI, to 10 to 25 years in prison for the second-degree murder of Thomas Youk. Youk’s assisted suicide was videotaped and shown on “60 Minutes” in 1998.
2000 – Richard Gordon was charged with trying to extort $250,000 from Louie Anderson in exchange for not telling the tabloid media about Anderson once asking him for sex. Gordon was held without bail pending a court hearing.
2000 – It was announced that 69 people had died when the Arlanda, a Philippine ferry, capsized. 70 people were rescued.
2002 – Twenty-five Hindus were killed and about 30 were wounded when grenades were thrown by suspected Islamic guerrillas near Jammu-Kashmir.
2002 – Venezuela’s interim president, Pedro Carmona, resigned a day after taking office. Thousands of protesters had supported over the ousting of president Hugo Chavez.
2007 – Google announced that it had acquired the advertising service company DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.
2016 – The Golden State Warriors ended the regular season with a record of 73-9. This beat the NBA record set by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls.
2017 – The US drops the largest ever non-nuclear weapon on Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Nat Borchers, American soccer player
- 1981 – Gemma Doyle, Scottish politician
- 1982 – Nellie McKay, British-American singer-songwriter, musician, and actress
- 1983 – Claudio Bravo, Chilean footballer
- 1983 – Schalk Burger, South African rugby player
- 1983 – Nicole Cooke, Welsh cyclist
- 1983 – Magneto Dayo, American rapper
- 1983 – Hunter Pence, American baseball player
- 1984 – Jarmo Ahjupera, Estonian footballer
- 1984 – Anders Lindegaard, Danish footballer
- 1985 – Anna Jennings-Edquist, Australian actress, director, and playwright
- 1985 – Algo Kärp, Estonian skier
- 1985 – Cody Nickson, American reality television personality
- 1986 – Michael Bingham, American-English sprinter
- 1986 – Lorenzo Cain, American baseball player
- 1987 – Brandon Hardesty, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1987 – Massimiliano Pesenti, Italian footballer
- 1987 – Allison Weiss, American singer-songwriter
- 1988 – Anderson, Brazilian footballer
- 1988 – Petteri Koponen, Finnish basketball player
- 1988 – Allison Williams, American actress, and singer
- 1989 – Ryan Bailey, American sprinter
- 1989 – Dong Dong, Chinese trampolinist
- 1989 – Nastassia Mironchyk-Ivanova, Belarusian long jumper
- 1989 – Josh Reynolds, Australian rugby league player
- 1989 – Vladislav Yegin, Russian ice hockey player
- 1990 – Anastasija Sevastova, a professional tennis player from Latvia
- 1991 – Akeem Adams, Trinidadian footballer (d. 2013)
- 1991 – Ulises Dávila, Mexican footballer
- 1991 – Josh Gordon, American football player
- 1992 – Denis Kudryavtsev, Russian hurdler
- 1992 – Jordan Silk, Australian cricketer
- 1993 – Tony Wroten, American basketball player
- 1994 – Ángelo Henríquez, Chilean footballer
- 1994 – Elvis Merzļikins, Latvian ice hockey player