December 13

Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. 

– Proverbs 8:34

December is:

Colorectal Cancer Education and Awareness Month - The purpose is to spread information about the early detection of colorectal cancer. Sponsor: Pharmacists Planning Service.

Born on this Day

• 1520: Pope Sixtus V
  

• 1533: Erik XIV, Stockholm, King of Sweden
  

• 1553: Henry IV, 1st Bourbon King of France
  

• 1585: William Drummond
  

• 1797: Poer Heinrich Heine (The Lorelei, Atta Troll, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Germany A Winter’s Tale, Romacero)
  

• 1818: Mary Todd Lincoln
  

• 1835: Clergyman Phillips Brooks, who wrote the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem"
  

• 1836: Mily Balakirev was born. Balakirev was one of "The Five," also known as "The Mighty Handful," the Russian composers who deliberately sought out a Russian alternative to the German way of composing a symphony.
  

• 1887: World War I hero Sergeant Alvin York
  

• 1903: Flaminco guitarist Carlos Montoya
  

• 1910: Actor Van Heflin
  

• 1914: Actor Larry (Klausman) Parks(The Jolson Story, Jolson Sings Again)
  

• 1922: Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz (some sources 1920)
  

• 1925: Actor-comedian Dick Van Dyke
  

• 1930: Actor Robert Prosky
  

• 1930: Country singer Buck White
  

• 1934: Movie producer Richard Zanuck
  

• 1941: Singer John Davidson
  

• 1948: Singer Ted Nugent
  

• 1948: Rock musician Jeff "Skunk" Baxter (The Doobie Brothers; Steely Dan)
  

• 1948: Country musician Ron Getman (The Tractors)
  

• 1949: Country singer-musician Randy Owen (Alabama)
  

• 1954: Country singer John Anderson
  

• 1957: Actor Steve Buscemi
  

• 1959: Actor Johnny Whitaker ("Family Affair")
  

• 1967: Actor-comedian Jamie Foxx
  

• 1981: Actress Chelsea Hertford ("Major Dad")  

Events in History on this day
  

• 0820: Murder of St. Kenelm, King of Mercia
  

• 1124: Death of Pope Colextus II
  

• 1204: Death of Maimonides
  

• 1250: Death of Frederick II, deposed Holy Roman Emperor
  

• 1294: Abdication of Pope Celestine V
  

• 1402: Emperor Go-Komatsu moves into the rebuilt Imperial Palace, Japan
  

• 1466: Donatello, Italian Renaissance sculptor, dies
  

• 1476: First item printed in England, a Papal Indulgence
  

• 1545: First meeting of the Council of Trent
  

• 1577: Sir Francis Drake of England set out with five ships on a nearly three-year journey that would take him around the world.
  

• 1570: Peace of Stettin; Denmark recognizes Swedish independence;
  

• 1623: Trial by jury established at Plymouth Colony
  

• 1640: Coronation of John IV as King of Portugal
  

• 1641: Death of St. Jane Frances de Chantel
  

• 1642: Dutch navigator Abel Tasman arrived in present-day New Zealand.
  

• 1769: Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, received its charter.
  

• 1809: The first abdominal surgical procedure was performed - in Danville, Kentucky. The patient was Jane Todd Crawford and the operation was performed without the aid of an anesthetic.
  

• 1816: The nation's first savings bank, the Provident Institution for Savings, opened in Boston.
  

• 1816: John Adamson, of Boston, MA, received a patent for a dry dock.
  

• 1844: The Hasty Pudding Club, a student body dramatic organization formed in 1770 at Harvard, gives its first theatrical production.
  

• 1862: An estimated 11,000 Northern soldiers were killed or wounded in a battle with Confederate troops outside Fredericksburg, Virginia.
  

• 1903: Wright brothers first airplane flight at Kittyhawk.
  

• 1913: Leonardo da Vinci's "La Gioconda" or, "Mona Lisa" for us art neophytes, was returned to the Louvre Museum in Paris after a two-year absence.
  

• 1918: President Wilson arrived in France, becoming the first chief executive to visit Europe while in office.
  

• 1929: The Second Symphony of Arnold Bax was premiered by the Boston Symphony.
  

• 1930: One of the greatest choral works of all time was premiered Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms." It was commissioned by the Boston Symphony, but its world premiere in Boston was delayed when Serge Koussevitsky got sick, so the first performance wound up being in Brussels.
  

• 1944: During World War Two, the US cruiser "Nashville" was badly damaged in a Japanese "kamikaze" suicide attack that claimed 138 lives.
  

• 1949: The American League voted down a proposal to revive the spitball, which had been outlawed since 1920.
  

• 1951: After meeting with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, President Truman vows to purge all disloyal government workers.
  

• 1961: Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses) passed away at the age of 101. The self-taught artist took up painting in her sixties and had her first showing in New York City at the age of eighty. Her style was nostalgic and primitive - mostly rural scenes: "The Old Oaken Bucket", "Christmas at Home", "The Quilting Bee".
  

• 1968: President Johnson and Mexico’s President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz meet on a bridge at El Paso, Texas, to officiate at ceremonies returning the long-disputed El Chamizal area to the Mexican side of the border.
  

• 1973: Britain cuts work week to three days to save energy supply.
  

• 1978: The Philadelphia Mint began stamping the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which went into circulation the following July.
  

• 1981: Polish labor leader Lech Walesa is arrested and the government decrees martial law, restricting civil rights and suspending operation of the independent trade union Solidarity.
  

• 1982: The Sentry armored car company in New York discovered the overnight theft of $11 million from its headquarters. It was the biggest cash theft in U.S. history.
  

• 1985: France sues the U.S. over the discovery of an AIDS serum.
  

• 1985: In a movie first, the murder mystery, "Clue" opened nationally. The film featured three different endings.
  

• 1987: Before leaving for Oslo, Norway, Secretary of State George P. Shultz told reporters in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Reagan administration would begin making funding requests for the proposed "Star Wars" defense system.
  

• 1988: PLO chairman Yasser Arafat addressed the UN General Assembly in Geneva, where it had reconvened after the US refused to grant Arafat a visa to visit New York.
  

• 1989: South African President F.W. de Klerk met for the first time with imprisoned African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, at de Klerk's office in Cape Town.
  

• 1990: A final evacuation flight from Iraq arrived in Germany, carrying the U.S. ambassador to Kuwait and his staff, who had endured a 110-day Iraqi siege of their embassy. 
  

• 1992: An Israeli border guard was kidnapped near Tel Aviv and later killed by the Hamas fundamentalist organization; the slaying prompted Israel to expel hundreds of Palestinians, sending them into Lebanese territory.
  

• 1993: The space shuttle "Endeavour" returned from its mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
  

• 1994: An American Eagle commuter plane carrying 20 people crashed short of Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina, killing 15.
  

• 1995: Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng, who'd already spent 16 years in prison, was sentenced to 14 more years. (However, Wei was granted medical parole by Beijing, and allowed to travel to the US.)
  

• 1995: As President Clinton flew to Paris to attend the signing of the Bosnian peace accord, Congress gave him partial backing for his Bosnia policy.
  

• 1996: President Clinton nominated Bill Daley to be commerce secretary and Bill Richardson to be United Nations ambassador.
  

• 1996: The UN Security Council chose Kofi Annan of Ghana to become the world body's seventh secretary-general.
  

• 1996: Trade ministers from 28 countries meeting in Singapore endorsed a US-crafted trade pact to abolish import duties on computers, software and other high-tech products.
  

• 1997: A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held in Los Angeles for the $1 billion Getty Center, one of the largest arts centers in the United States.
  

• 1997: Michigan Wolverine Charles Woodson was named winner of the Heisman Trophy, the first primarily defensive player so honored.
  

• 1998: Voters in Puerto Rico rejected US statehood.
  

• 1998: With a grave impeachment threat looming, President Clinton told a news conference in Jerusalem he would not resign, and insisted he did not commit perjury.
  

• 1999: In a spirited presidential campaign debate, Texas Govenor George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, R-Arizona, fought over tax policy and farm subsidies, while McCain was pushed to defend his centerpiece campaign finance proposals. 
  

• 1999: In his first major test on the road to peace with Syria, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak won parliamentary backing for opening negotiations with Damascus. 

Today's History Focus

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