1910: The death of Florence Nightingale, English nurse who came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed ‘The Lady with the Lamp’ after her habit of making rounds at night.
1961: After World War II ended in 1945, the SED, the state party of the GDR, established a dictatorship in East Germany with the support of the Soviet occupying power. A large part of the East German population did not agree with the new political and economic system. By the late 1940s, a mass migration to the West was underway. People had different reasons – political, economic and personal – for wanting to leave. By August 1961, the GDR had lost a sixth of its population – at least four million people. On August 13, 1961, the SED began to seal off the borders around West Berlin, first with barbed wire and a few days later with walls. It hoped this measure would put an end to the mass exodus to Berlin. It also wanted to stabilize its power and document its sovereignty to the outside world. But not even barbed wire and the Wall could stop people from fleeing. The efforts to perfect the border fortifications in Berlin continued until 1989.
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1966: John Lennon Apologizes
The Beatles hold press conference at the Astor Tower Hotel, in Chicago, Illinois; John Lennon apologizes for his “more popular than Jesus” remark
1997: Following worldwide press speculation, Diana, Princess of Wales issued a statement insisting she had no plans to marry Dodi Al Fayed.
2008: 3 medals for Phelps
American super-swimmer Michael Phelps won 3 gold medals, all in world record time, in the one day at the Beijing Olympics; 200m I/M (1:54.23), 200m butterfly (1.52.03) and 4 x 200m freestyle relay (6:58.56)
BIRTHS ON THIS DAY: August 13
Fidel Castro. (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016)
Cuban political leader Fidel Castro, who transformed his country into the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere, was born.
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 Roman Catholic boarding schools in Santiago de Cuba. He became involved in revolutionary politics while he was a student and in 1947 took part in an abortive attempt by Dominican exiles and Cubans to overthrow Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. In the next year, he took part in urban riots in Bogota, Colombia. The most outstanding feature of his politics during the period was his anti-American beliefs; he was not yet an overt Marxist. He died at 90.
