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Berlin is divided

Born on This Day

Alfred Hitchcock

1899 - 1980

“Master of suspense” and British film director of Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest and Rebecca.

Annie Oakley

1860 - 1926

Sharpshooter who gained fame showcasing her marksmanship as part of “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West Tour.

Janet Yellen

1946 -

Economist who was the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve and serve as U.S. Treasury Secretary.

Alfred HitchcockNBCUniversal via Getty Images

Annie OakleyBettmann Archive

Janet YellenGetty Images

1941

AUG13

Henry Ford shows off his so-called Soybean Car, whose plastic body is partially made from the protein-rich legumes. While it weighs half as much as a steel-bodied car and Ford says it’s safer, it never goes into production.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on August 13th

Aztec capital falls to Cortés

After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés capture Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortés’ men leveled the city and captured Cuauhtémoc, the Aztec emperor. Tenochtitlán was founded in 1325 A.D. by a wandering tribe of hunters and gatherers on islands in Lake Texcoco, near the present site of Mexico City. In […]

First victim of Memphis yellow fever epidemic dies

On August 13, 1878, Kate Bionda, a restaurant owner, dies of yellow fever in Memphis, Tennessee, after a man who had escaped a quarantined steamboat visited her restaurant. The disease spread rapidly and the resulting epidemic emptied the city. Yellow fever, which is carried by mosquitoes, originally came from West Africa and was brought to […]

Fidel Castro born

Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro is born in the Oriente province of eastern Cuba. He would go on to become a dictator for half of a century of the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere. The son of a Spanish immigrant who had made a fortune building rail systems to transport sugar cane, Fidel attended […]

“Hound Dog” is recorded for the first time by Big Mama Thornton

On August 13, 1952, four years before Elvis Presley would make “Hound Dog” his longest running no. 1 hit, the song is recorded for the very first time by the rhythm-and-blues singer Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton in Los Angeles, California. Since Presley’s version ran 11 weeks at the top of the pop music charts, […]

Reagan signs Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA)

On August 13, 1981, at his California home Rancho del Cielo, Ronald Reagan signs the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA), a package of tax and budget reductions that set the tone for his administration’s trickle-down economic policy. During his campaign for the White House in 1980, Reagan argued on behalf of “supply-side economics,” the theory […]

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“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” debuts

On August 13, 1982, the teenage coming-of-age comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High opens in theaters around the United States. Written by Cameron Crowe and directed by Amy Heckerling, the film follows a year in the life of high school students Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Linda (Phoebe Cates), Mark (Brian Backer) and Mike (Robert Romanus) […]

New York Yankees star Mickey Mantle dies

Former New York Yankees star Mickey Mantle dies of liver cancer at the age of 63. While “The Mick” patrolled center field and batted clean-up between 1951 and 1968, the Yankees won 12 American League pennants and seven World Series championships. Mantle was born in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, on October 20, 1931. He grew up in […]

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