August 13

1521 – Spanish troops led by conquistador Hernán Cortés capture Emperor Tlatoani Cuauhtémoc and conquer the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.

1553 – Michael Servetus is arrested by John Calvin in Geneva on charges of heresy.

1624 – Louis XIII appoints Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke de Richelieu as prime minister.

1779 – The Royal Navy defeats the Penobscot Expedition in the Penobscot Bay near Castine, Maine, resulting in the most significant loss of United States naval forces prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1806 – Serbian Revolutionary forces under ‘Karađorđe’ Petrović engage and defeat an invading Ottoman army near Mišar, Serbia

1860 – Phoebe ‘Annie Oakley’ Mosey is born at home in Woodland, Ohio

1889 – William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut is granted United States Patent Number 408,709 for a “Coin-controlled apparatus for telephones”

1898 – Spanish and American forces engage in a mock battle for Manila, after which the Spanish commander surrendered in order to keep the city out of Filipino rebel hands.

1918 – Opha May Johnson is the first woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps

1942 – Major General Eugene Reybold of the Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities for the “Development of Substitute Materials” (U-235) later named the Manhattan Project.

1945 – American forces resume conventional air raids target in Japan and also drop leaflets describing the Japanese offer of surrender and the Allied response.

1961 – East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin and starts construction of the Berlin Wall

1967 – Two park employees, Julie Helgeson and Michele Koons, become the first fatal victims of grizzly bear attacks at Montana’s Glacier National Park since its founding in 1910.

1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts enjoy a ticker tape parade in New York City and are later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

2020 – As part of the Abraham Accords,  mediated by President Trump, for the first time, formal diplomatic relations are established between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.