Today in History 5/13/20

Published 12:29 pm Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Today is Wednesday, May 13, the 134th day of 2020. There are 232 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On May 13, 1940, in his first speech as British prime minister, Winston Churchill told Parliament, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

On this date:

In 1568, forces loyal to Mary, Queen of Scots were defeated by troops under her half-brother and Regent of Scotland, the Earl of Moray, in the Battle of Langside, thwarting Mary’s attempt to regain power almost a year after she was forced to abdicate.

In 1607, English colonists arrived by ship at the site of what became the Jamestown settlement in Virginia (the colonists went ashore the next day).

In 1914, heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis was born in Lafayette, Ala.

In 1916, one of Yiddish literature’s most famous authors, Sholem Aleichem, died in New York at age 57.

In 1917, three shepherd children reported seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary near Fatima, Portugal; it was the first of six such apparitions that the children claimed to have witnessed.

In 1918, the first U.S. airmail stamp, costing 24 cents and featuring a picture of a Curtiss JN-4 biplane, was publicly issued. (On some of the stamps, the “Jenny” was printed upside-down, making them collector’s items.)

In 1958, Vice President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, were spat upon and their limousine battered by rocks thrown by anti-U.S. demonstrators in Caracas, Venezuela.

In 1972, 118 people died after fire broke out at the Sennichi Department Store in Osaka, Japan.

In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter’s Square by Turkish assailant Mehmet Ali Agca.

In 1985, a confrontation between Philadelphia authorities and the radical group MOVE ended as police dropped a bomb onto the group’s row house, igniting a fire that killed 11 people and destroyed 61 homes.

In 1992, the Falun Gong movement had its beginnings in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton nominated federal appeals Judge Stephen G. Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Harry A. Blackmun; Breyer went on to win Senate confirmation.

Ten years ago: Three Pakistani men who authorities say supplied funds to would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad were arrested in a series of raids in New England. President Barack Obama met with police officers who responded to the attempted car-bombing, greeting them at the New York Police Department’s high-tech Real Time Crime Center.

Five years ago: The House voted 338-88 to end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records and replace it with a system to search the data held by telephone companies on a case-by-case basis. (The measure was passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Barack Obama.) Prosecutors and defense attorneys made their final appeals to the jury that would decide the fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as jurors began deliberating whether the Boston Marathon bomber should get life in prison or the death penalty. (The jury voted unanimously for death.)

One year ago: Sending Wall Street into a slide, China announced higher tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s latest penalties on Chinese products; the Dow industrials finished more than 600 points lower. Doris Day, the sunny blond actress and singer who starred in comedic roles opposite Rock Hudson and Cary Grant in the 1950s and 1960s, died at her California home at the age of 97. Actress Felicity Huffman pleaded guilty in the college admissions bribery scheme; she admitted paying an admissions consultant $15,000 to have a proctor correct her older daughter’s answers on the SAT. (Huffman would serve 12 days of a two-week prison sentence.)

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Buck Taylor is 82. Actor Harvey Keitel is 81. Author Charles Baxter is 73. Actress Zoe Wanamaker is 72. Actor Franklyn Ajaye is 71. Singer Stevie Wonder is 70. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich is 68. Actress Leslie Winston is 64. Producer-writer Alan Ball is 63. Basketball Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman is 59. “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert is 56. Rock musician John Richardson (The Gin Blossoms) is 56. Actor Tom Verica is 56. Singer Darius Rucker (Hootie and the Blowfish) is 54. Actress Susan Floyd is 52. Contemporary Christian musician Andy Williams (Casting Crowns) is 48. Actor Brian Geraghty is 45. Actress Samantha Morton is 43. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is 43. Former NBA player Mike Bibby is 42. Rock musician Mickey Madden (Maroon 5) is 41. Actor Iwan Rheon is 35. Actress-writer-director Lena Dunham is 34. Actor Robert Pattinson is 34. Actress Candice Accola King is 33. Actor Hunter Parrish is 33. Folk-rock musician Wylie Gelber (Dawes) is 32. NHL defenseman P.K. Subban is 32. Actress Debby Ryan is 27.

Thought for Today: “To want to be the cleverest of all is the biggest folly.” — Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916).