On This Day
What Happened on February 13 in History
8 events that happened on February 13, oldest first. Every entry is written in our own words and links to its source.
The Early 1900s and the World Wars
1910
William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor, is born in London.
Shockley shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain for their work on semiconductors at Bell Labs. His later company helped draw the electronics industry to what became Silicon Valley, though his views on race drew wide condemnation.
Source: nobelprize.org; archive.nytimes.com
1945
Allied bombers begin a series of raids that destroy much of the German city of Dresden.
British bombers struck at night and American bombers followed over the next two days, creating a firestorm in the historic city center. The scale of civilian deaths made the raids one of the most debated Allied actions of World War II.
Source: history.com
1945
The siege of Budapest ends as Soviet forces take the Hungarian capital from German troops.
The battle for the city lasted about seven weeks and left much of Budapest in ruins. German and Hungarian defenders who tried to break out in the final days suffered heavy losses.
Source: encyclopedia.ushmm.org
The Cold War
1960
Black college students launch the first large sit-ins at Nashville lunch counters.
Trained in nonviolent tactics by James Lawson, students including Diane Nash and John Lewis sat at segregated counters in downtown stores, which closed rather than serve them. After months of protest and arrests, Nashville's lunch counters were desegregated in May 1960.
Source: nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu; irle.ucla.edu
1960
France tests its first atomic bomb in the Sahara and becomes the fourth nuclear power.
The test, code-named Gerboise Bleue, was set off near Reggane in what was then French Algeria. It followed the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain, and fallout from the blast spread beyond the test area.
Source: osti.gov
1965
President Lyndon Johnson approves Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
The decision followed Viet Cong attacks on American bases in South Vietnam earlier that month. The bombing began in March 1965 and continued on and off until 1968, marking a major escalation of U.S. involvement in the war.
Source: history.com; pbs.org
The Modern Era
2000
The last original Peanuts strip runs in newspapers, the morning after Charles Schulz's death.
Schulz had drawn the comic about Charlie Brown, Snoopy and their friends since October 1950 and announced his retirement after being diagnosed with cancer. His final strip was a farewell message to readers.
Source: npr.org; presidency.ucsb.edu
2017
Kim Jong-nam, half brother of North Korea's leader, is killed with a nerve agent at a Malaysian airport.
Two women smeared the banned chemical weapon VX on his face in a terminal at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, and he died on the way to a hospital. Malaysian investigators linked the attack to North Korean agents, who were never brought to trial.
Source: pbs.org