October 13^th is

Navy Day *

National M&M Day

Yorkshire Pudding Day

U.N. International Day for Disaster Reduction *

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MORE!  Paul Simon, Rachel De Thame and Naguib Mahfouz, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Burundi – Prince Rwagasore Day
(assassination memorial)

Malaysia – Melaka: State Holiday

Morocco – Essaouira:
Moga Music Festival

Thailand:
King Bhymibol Adulyadej Memorial

Trinidad & Tobago: First Peoples Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

54 – Roman Emperor Claudius dies, probably of poisoning – his wife Agrippina is suspected, possibly in collusion with Nero, who succeeded his uncle

1269 – The present building at Westminster Abbey is consecrated

1307 – Phillip the Fair, who owed large sums to the Knights Templar in France, has hundreds of them arrested, and tortured into ‘confession’ of heresy

1773 – The Whirlpool Galaxy is discovered by Charles Messier, who designates it M51 in his catalogue

1775 – Navy Day * U.S. Continental Congress establishes the Continental Navy

1792 –Executive Mansion cornerstone laid in Washington DC. – nicknamed the ‘White House’ in 1818 – name officially changed by President Theodore Roosevelt

1821 – Mexico declares its independence * from the Spanish Empire

1843 – B’nai B’rith, the oldest Jewish service organization in the world, is founded by 12 recent German Jewish immigrants in New York City

1845 – Nine years after its inception, the majority of Republic of Texas voters approve becoming a U.S. state instead, effective in 1846

1862 – Mary H. Kingsley born, English ethnographic and scientific writer and explorer; wrote and lectured about Sierra Leone, Angola, Gabon, the Congo River and Cameroon after traveling in West Africa in 1893 and 1894-95; author of Travels in West Africa and West African Studies

1872 – Leon Leonwood Bean, American hunter, businessman, and author, founded L.L.Bean

1881 – Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, “reviver of the Hebrew language,” holds the first known conversation in modern Hebrew with friends

1884 – The International Meridian Conference votes on a resolution to establish the meridian passing through the Observatory of Greenwich, in London, England, as the initial meridian for longitude

1885 – The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is founded in Atlanta, United States

1890 – Conrad Richter born, American novelist; The Town, third book of his trilogy, The Awakening Land, won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

1892 – Edward Emerson Barnard discovers D/1892 T1, the first comet discovered by photographic means, on the night of October 13–14

1902 – Arna Bontemps born, American novelist and poet, he was a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance; Story of the Negro

1903 – Babes in Toyland premieres on Broadway

1919 – Jackie Ronne born, American explorer; first woman to work as a member of an Antarctic expedition (1947-49); the Ronne Ice Shelf is named for her

1923 – Ankara replaces Istanbul as the capital of Turkey

1923 – Rosemary Anne Sisson born, English author, playwright and television scriptwriter; The Excise Man, scripts for: The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), Elizabeth R (1971), Upstairs, Downstairs (1972–75) and The Duchess of Duke Street

1924 – The Guardsman opens on Broadway

1925 – Margaret Thatcher born, Conservative MP and Party Leader, first woman to lead a major political party in Britain and first female UK Prime Minister (1979-1990)

1934 – Nana Mouskouri born, Greek singer and politician; UNICEF spokesperson and Greek deputy to the European Parliament (1994-1999)

1940 – Pharoah Sanders born, American Jazz saxophonist

https://youtu.be/BVuiyP_OJ_c

1941 – Paul Simon born, American singer-songwriter; Simon and Garfunkel

1944 – Robert Lamm born, American singer-songwriter and keyboardist, founding member of rock group Chicago

1950 – Mollie Katzen born, American chef, cookbook author; The Moosewood Cookbook, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest

1953 – Samuel Bagno patents an ultrasonic burglar alarm

1957 – The Fordis introduced on a TV special with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby

1958 – Maria Cantwell born, American politician, U.S. Senator (D-WA 2001 to present), previously U.S. House of Representatives (D-WA for 1^st District 1993-1995 and for 44^th District 1987-1993)

1961 – Rachel De Thame, English Horticulturist, garden expert and BBC 2 presenter on Gardener’s World, and Small Town Gardens, and co-host for the BBC’s annual coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show

1962 – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Debuts on Broadway

1983 – Ameritech Mobile Communications (now AT&T) launched first U.S. cellular network in Chicago

1988 – Naguib Mahfouz wins the Nobel Prize in Literature

1989 – U.N. General Assembly designates International Day for Disaster Reduction, * to promote risk-awareness, disaster preparedness/mitigation – now October 13 annually

2009 – Bob Dylan releases album Christmas in the Heart

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