Other reasons to remember May 13
13th May 2008
1568: Mary Queen of Scots was defeated at the Battle of Langside and immediately fled to North England.
1607: Jamestown founded.
1846: The United States formally declared war on Mexico after several days of fighting.
1938: Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded the New Orleans’s jazz classic, When the Saints Go Marching In, on Decca Records.
1940: Winston Churchill gave his first speech as prime minister: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
1958: VP Nixon attacked in Venezuela.
1973: Tennis male chauvinist Bobby Riggs defeated Margaret Smith Court, 6-2, 6-1 in front of a world-wide television audience. He would lose to Billie Jean King later that year.
1981: Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Agca as he drove through a crowd in St. Peter’s Square, Rome.
1985: MOVE cult building fire in Philadelphia.
Other birthdays:
1842: Arthur Sullivan
1882: Georges Braque
1907: Daphne Du Maurier
1914: Joe Louis
1926: Bea Arthur
1927: Clive Barnes
1930: Mike Gravel
1931: Jim Jones
1939: Harvey Keitel
1941: Ritchie Valens
1950: Stevie Wonder and Peter Gabriel
All in all, a pretty dull day in history.