February 13
Today in America's Present Past
1693 | The College of William & Mary opened.
1728 | Cleric Cotton Mather died.
1741 | American Magazine, the nation’s first periodical, was published by Andrew Bradford, it beat Benjamin Franklin’s General Magazine to the press by just three days.
1795 | University of North Carolina, the nation’s first state college, opens. While Georgia chartered a state university earlier, UNC was the first to actually open its doors and hold classes.
1799 | The Massachusetts legislature passed the nation’s first regulation of insurance.
1818 | Abolitionist Absalom Jones died.
1818 | George Rogers Clark died.
1826 | The nation’s first known “Temperance” society was formed in Boston, Massachusetts: The American Temperance Society. Within a decade, it had over 8,000 local groups and 1.5 million members, setting the stage for eventual Prohibition.
1837 | An inflation-fueled “Flour riot” broke out in New York City. Triggered by a combination of the Panic of 1837 and a poor wheat harvest, a mob broke into flour warehouses on Lower Manhattan, destroying hundreds of barrels as prices soared from $7 to $12 a barrel.
1861 | POTUS: Republican President Abraham Lincoln declared President. Vice President John C. Breckinridge (who had lost to Lincoln) performed the constitutional duty of counting the electoral votes before a joint session of Congress.
1861 | Bernard John Dowling earned The nation’s first U.S. Medal of Honor (but not awarded) during the Apache Wars. Assistant Surgeon Bernard J.D. Irwin led a rescue party to save 60 soldiers. Although the medal wasn’t created until 1862 and he wasn’t awarded it until 1894, his action is the earliest chronologically to earn the honor.
1866 | Criminal Jesse James robbed his first bank, stealing $15,000. The James-Younger Gang robbed the Clay County Savings Association. It is historically significant as the first successful daylight bank robbery during peacetime in the U.S.
1882 | Abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet died.
1887 | Attempted Kennedy Assassin Richard Pavlick was born.
1891 | Painter Grant Wood was born.
1892 | SCOTUS: Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson was born.
1900 | Jazz entertainer Joesph “Wingy” Manone was born.
1910 | Physicist William Shockley was born.
1914 | ASCAP Founded: The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers was founded in NYC on this day to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
1919 | Singer Ernie “Tennessee” Ford was born.
1922 | Economist Gordon Tullock was born.
1923 | The “Renaissance” was the first African-American pro-basketball team organized.
1923 | Aviator Chuck Yeager was born.
1935 | A jury convicts Bruno Hauptmann of kidnap and murder of the Lindbergh baby. The “Trial of the Century” concluded with a death sentence for Hauptmann. The case led to the passage of the Federal Kidnapping Act (the “Lindbergh Law”), making kidnapping a federal crime if the victim is transported across state lines.
1944 | Actress Stockard Channing was born.
1945 | WWII: U.S. bombing of Dresden, Germany began. Over 800 Allied bombers (including the U.S. 8th Air Force) dropped more than 3,300 tons of explosives and incendiaries, creating a firestorm that decimated the city.
1957 | Civil Rights: Southern Christian Leadership Conference formed with Martin Luther King as its leader. Originally the “Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation,” it became the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
1961 | Entertainer Henry Rollins was born.
1968 | POTUS: Democrat President Johnson sent an additional 10,000 soldiers to Vietnam.
1971 | Republican Vice-President Spiro Agnew injures two people while golfing.
1980 | The XIII Winter Olympic Games officially opened in Lake Placid, New York, on Feb 13—the same games that would later host the “Miracle on Ice.”
2003 | Economist Walt Rostow died.
2016 | SCOTUS: Justice Antonin Scalia died.
2019 | NASA announces the end of its Mars rover “Opportunity.” Designed for a 90-day mission, “Oppy” survived for 15 years, traveling over 28 miles across the Martian surface before a dust storm finally silenced it.
2021 | POTUS: Republican President Trump was acquitted by the Senate after an impeachment trial.