742 — Birth of Charlemagne, first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. As the smugly erudite will note, the Holy Roman Empire was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” Charlemagne unified much of Western Europe for the first time since the fall of Rome, and his legacy shaped the political and cultural geography of Europe for over a millennium. He also championed literacy and learning in what became known as the Carolingian Renaissance.
1146 — Bernard of Clairvaux preaches the Second Crusade in a field at Vézelay, laying out the rationale for a new campaign to the Holy Lands. Bernard was the most influential churchman of his age, and his impassioned oratory drew enormous crowds. The Second Crusade (1147–1150) was ultimately a failure, ending without significant Christian gains — but Bernard’s sermon stands as a landmark moment in medieval religious and military mobilization.
1204 — Death of Eleanor of Aquitaine (b. 1122), Queen of both France and England, and mother of Richard the Lionheart. Eleanor outlived two husbands and two sons on the throne of England, remaining politically active well into her eighties. Her “Court of Love” at Poitiers helped codify the ideals of chivalry and courtly romance that defined medieval European aristocratic culture.
1453 — Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II begins his siege of Constantinople, which falls in May, ending the Christian Byzantine Empire. The fall of Constantinople is considered by many historians to mark the end of the Middle Ages. Mehmed’s conquest absorbed the last remnant of the Roman Empire and established Istanbul as the capital of a Muslim superpower that would dominate southeastern Europe for centuries. Fleeing Byzantine scholars carried classical Greek texts westward, helping to fuel the Italian Renaissance.
1533(a) — King Henry VIII divorces Catherine of Aragon, widowed wife of his older brother Arthur. Catherine had failed to produce a male heir after nearly 25 years of marriage, and Henry had become infatuated with the younger Anne Boleyn. His determination to annul the marriage, refused by Pope Clement VII, set in motion the English Reformation and the creation of the Church of England — one of the most consequential religious ruptures in Western history.
1533(b) — Thomas Cranmer is made Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer had spent five years building the ecclesiastical legal case for Henry’s divorce. As Archbishop, he formalized the split from Rome, shaped the theology of the new Church of England, and authored the Book of Common Prayer, still in use today. He was burned at the stake under Queen Mary I in 1556, dramatically thrusting his right hand — the hand that had signed his recantations — into the flames first.
1727 — Death of Isaac Newton (b. 1643). Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687) established the laws of motion and universal gravitation that underpinned all of physics until Einstein. He also co-invented calculus, made foundational discoveries in optics, and spent the latter half of his life as Master of the Royal Mint. He died a wealthy man and was buried with full state honors in Westminster Abbey.
1743 — Birth of Thomas Jefferson (d. 1826). Principal author of the Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, founder of the University of Virginia, and architect of the Louisiana Purchase. A man of breathtaking intellectual range and equally breathtaking personal contradictions, Jefferson remains one of the most debated figures in American history.
1775 — King George III endorses the New England Restraining Act, restricting colonial trade to Britain only and banning New England fishing in North Atlantic waters, effective July 20th. This punitive legislation came just weeks before the Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775), piling economic pressure on a population already at the breaking point. Rather than compelling colonial submission, it served as yet another accelerant on the path to outright rebellion.
1801 — The Battle of Copenhagen: the British Channel Fleet, with Nelson second in command, destroys the Danish fleet. Nelson’s famous act of “turning a blind eye” to the signal ordering his withdrawal — he put the telescope to his blind eye and claimed he saw no such order — has become a byword for inspired battlefield insubordination. The victory kept the Baltic trade lanes open and denied France a key northern alliance.
1814 — Death of Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin (b. 1738), a lifelong opponent of capital punishment. Guillotin’s six-point reform package, intended as a step toward abolishing executions entirely, instead gave history one of its most iconic instruments of death. The machine bearing his name claimed over 15,000 lives during the Terror alone and remained in official use in France until 1977 — the last developed nation to abandon it.
1836 — Birth of Frederick Pabst (d. 1904). A blue ribbon day indeed. Pabst rose from Great Lakes steamboat captain to brewing magnate, eventually building Pabst Brewing Company into one of the largest breweries in America. The “blue ribbon” attached to his Best Select lager beginning in 1882 gave Pabst Blue Ribbon its name — and an unlikely 21st-century hipster following.
1847 — General Winfield Scott captures the Mexican port of Veracruz after a 20-day siege. The first large-scale American amphibious assault in history, Veracruz was a masterclass in combined arms operations. Among the junior officers who learned the art of war under “Old Fuss ‘n Feathers” during this campaign and the subsequent march to Mexico City were future Civil War generals on both sides, including Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
1848 — An ice jam stops Niagara Falls for 30 hours. Driven by strong southwest winds that pushed ice from Lake Erie into the Niagara River, the jam effectively cut the flow to a trickle. Locals walked out onto the exposed riverbed to collect artifacts and Civil War-era munitions from the now-dry floor. A similar event, though briefer, occurred again in 1969 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers actually dewatered the American Falls deliberately.
1853 — Birth of Vincent van Gogh (d. 1890). In just a decade of serious painting (roughly 1880–1890), the Dutch Post-Impressionist produced over 2,100 works. Largely unrecognized in his lifetime, van Gogh sold only one painting before his death at 37 — reportedly a suicide, though recent scholarship has raised questions. His works now routinely sell for over $100 million.
1854 — Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening Japanese ports to American trade. Perry’s “Black Ships” had first appeared off the Japanese coast in 1853, effectively forcing negotiations with a nation that had been deliberately isolated from the West for over 200 years. The treaty cracked the door; subsequent agreements flung it open, and within two generations Japan had transformed itself into a modern industrial and military power.
1865(a) — Union troops overrun Confederate defenses at Petersburg; Lee orders a strategic retreat. The nine-month Siege of Petersburg had bled both armies, but the Confederacy far worse. The fall of the Petersburg lines also meant the fall of Richmond, and Lee’s retreat up the Appomattox River set in motion the final week of the Civil War, ending with his surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9th.
1865(b) — President Jefferson Davis and his war cabinet abandon Richmond. Davis hoped to continue the war from further south, perhaps linking up with remaining Confederate forces under Johnston in the Carolinas. He was captured by Union cavalry in Georgia on May 10th, two months to the day after fleeing Richmond, reportedly — and humiliatingly — dressed in women’s clothing, though he disputed this account.
1867 — Secretary of State William Seward purchases Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million (~2 cents per acre). Mocked at the time as “Seward’s Folly” and “Seward’s Icebox,” the purchase proved to be one of the shrewdest real estate deals in history. Alaska yielded billions in gold, oil, timber, and fisheries over the following century and a half. Russia, for its part, used the cash to help finance post-Crimean War reconstruction.
1886 — John Pemberton brews his first batch of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia. Pemberton, a Confederate veteran and pharmacist, originally marketed the syrup as a patent medicine and “brain tonic.” The formula contained cocaine from coca leaves and caffeine from kola nuts — the latter giving the drink its name. Cocaine was removed from the recipe around 1903, though Coca-Cola still uses a decocainized coca leaf extract for flavor.
1889 — Inauguration of the Eiffel Tower (La Tour Eiffel). Built as the entrance arch for the 1889 World’s Fair commemorating the centennial of the French Revolution, the tower was meant to be a temporary structure and was nearly demolished in 1909. It was saved partly because it proved useful as a giant radio antenna. Today it is the most visited paid monument in the world, welcoming nearly 7 million visitors annually.
1899 — Birth of August Anheuser Busch Jr. (d. 1989). “Gussie” Busch led Anheuser-Busch for decades, transforming it into the largest brewing company in the world and acquiring the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team in 1953 along the way. Beechwood aging would not be far behind — and neither, apparently, would the Clydesdales.
1911 — The U.S. Army formally adopts the M1911 .45 ACP pistol as its standard sidearm. Designed by the legendary John Moses Browning, the M1911 saw service through both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, and beyond — a run of over 70 years as the standard U.S. military sidearm. Its .45 ACP cartridge was specifically engineered to stop determined, drug-fueled Moro guerrillas in the Philippines, a requirement the Army took quite seriously after earlier .38-caliber revolvers proved inadequate.
1917(a) — Birth of Man O’War (d. 1947). With a record of 20 wins and 1 second-place finish, Man O’War is widely considered the greatest Thoroughbred of the 20th century. His one loss, to a horse aptly named Upset, came from a poor start. His descendants dominated racing for generations; his grandson Seabiscuit became a Depression-era symbol of resilience and underdog triumph.
1917(b) — President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress for a declaration of war against Imperial Germany. Wilson had won re-election in 1916 on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” The resumption of unrestricted German submarine warfare and the revelation of the Zimmermann Telegram — in which Germany proposed a military alliance with Mexico against the United States — made neutrality untenable. Congress declared war four days later, on April 6th.
1918 — Birth of Sam Walton (d. 1992). The founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club built what became the world’s largest retailer from a single five-and-dime store in Rogers, Arkansas. Walton’s relentless focus on low prices and supply chain efficiency permanently altered global retail and manufacturing. At the time of his death he was one of the wealthiest people in American history.
1934 — Birth of Shirley Jones. The Oklahoma-born actress won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Elmer Gantry (1960) — somewhat against type, given that she played a prostitute, in contrast to her many wholesome roles. She is perhaps best remembered by later generations as Shirley Partridge in The Partridge Family (1970–1974).
1939 — The Spanish Civil War ends when Madrid falls to Generalissimo Francisco Franco. The war (1936–1939) had drawn in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on Franco’s side and the Soviet Union on the Republican side, serving as a brutal dress rehearsal for World War II. Franco’s authoritarian regime survived until his death in 1975, after which Spain transitioned relatively smoothly to democracy.
1940 — Birth of Barney Frank, the Pride of Fall River, Massachusetts. Frank served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 to 2013, representing Massachusetts. He was the first sitting member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay (1987) and was a primary architect of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act (2010), passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Your DLH Scribe notes this is his blurb and stands by his characterization.
1948 — Birth of Al Gore, the pride of… well. The 45th Vice President of the United States (1993–2001) won the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election but lost the Electoral College to George W. Bush following the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore. He subsequently won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work on climate change, along with an Academy Award for An Inconvenient Truth.
1951 — Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are found guilty of espionage for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs were executed at Sing Sing Prison on June 19, 1953, the first American civilians to be put to death for espionage during peacetime. Their guilt, long disputed by supporters, was largely confirmed by the declassification of Soviet intelligence intercepts (the Venona files) in the 1990s. Their two young sons were adopted by the Meeropol family and raised under assumed names.
1955 — Birth of Reba McEntire, country music icon. McEntire became one of the best-selling country artists of all time, with over 35 studio albums and 24 number-one singles. She has also built a substantial acting career, including a long-running sitcom, a Broadway turn in Annie Get Your Gun, and her recent run on The Voice. Known universally in Nashville simply as “Reba.”
1966 — Death of C.S. Forester (b. 1899), creator of Captain Horatio Hornblower. Forester’s 12-novel Hornblower series, following a Royal Navy officer from midshipman to admiral during the Napoleonic Wars, set the gold standard for nautical historical fiction. His influence reaches far: Patrick O’Brian acknowledged him as an inspiration, as did Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who modeled James T. Kirk partly on Hornblower. Forester also wrote The African Queen, memorably filmed with Bogart and Hepburn in 1951.
1969 — Death of Dwight D. Eisenhower (b. 1890), USMA Class of 1915. Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II and 34th President of the United States, Eisenhower presided over a period of relative peace and extraordinary economic prosperity. His farewell address, warning of the dangers of the “military-industrial complex,” remains one of the most prescient speeches in American presidential history.
1979 — Three Mile Island reactor accident, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. A cascade of equipment failures and human error partially melted the core of TMI-2. While no one died directly and radiation releases were relatively contained, the accident permanently changed American attitudes toward nuclear power and halted new plant construction for decades. The full core cleanup wasn’t completed until 1993. Historians of energy policy continue to debate whether the public reaction was proportionate to the actual risk.
1981 — John Hinckley shoots President Ronald Reagan and three others outside the Washington Hilton. Reagan’s surgeon later said the President was “within minutes” of death. Reagan’s recovery was remarkably swift, and his grace and humor throughout — joking with his wife and his surgeons — became a defining moment of his presidency. Press Secretary James Brady, also shot, suffered permanent brain damage. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was fully released from court supervision in June 2022.
1997 — USS Missouri (BB-63) is decommissioned in Long Beach, California, the last active American battleship. The “Mighty Mo” is best known as the site of Japan’s formal surrender on September 2, 1945 — arguably the most consequential deck in American naval history. She now rests at Pearl Harbor, within sight of the sunken USS Arizona, together forming a bookend memorial to the Pacific War: one marking its beginning, the other its end.
2004 — Four Blackwater security contractors are ambushed, killed, mutilated, and their bodies hung from a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq. The brutal attack shocked the American public and led directly to the First and Second Battles of Fallujah, among the bloodiest urban combat operations of the Iraq War. The incident also intensified scrutiny of the growing role of private military contractors in American combat zones, a debate that continues to this day.
About the Author
Wasn’t Thomas Jefferson born April 13th?
Editor’s Note: Yes. We lifted this from a normally reliable source. TJ probably don’t mind.