1743 - Thomas Jefferson (3rd U.S. President [1801-1809];
drafted the Declaration of Independence)
1852 - F.W. (Frank W.) Woolworth (merchant: created the
five and ten cent store [1879 in Lancaster, PA]: headed F.W.
Woolworth & Co. with over 1,000 stores, funded NY's
Woolworth Building)
1866 - Butch Cassidy (old west outlaw: leader of The Wild
Bunch gang)
1899 - Alfred M. Butts (architect, inventor: Scrabble)
1906 - Samuel Beckett (author, critic, playwright: Waiting for
Godot, The Unnamable, Eleutheria, Malone Dies, Malloy,
Endgame)
1906 - Bud (Lawrence) Freeman (jazz musician: tenor sax:
China Boy, Easy to Get, I've Found a New Baby, The Eel,
Mr. Toad)
1907 - Harold Stassen (perennial U.S. Presidential candidate)
1909 - Eurora Welty (poet: Delta Wedding, Losing Battles)
1919 - Howard Keel (Harold Leek) (actor: Dallas; singer,
actor: Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat, Lovely to
Look At, Kiss Me Kate, Calamity Jane, Rose-Marie, Seven
Brides for Seven Brothers, Deep in My Heart, Saratoga, No
Strings)
1925 - Jules Irving (actor)
1928 - Teddy Charles (musician)
1929 - Marilyn Smith (golfer)
1931 - Dan Gurney (auto racer: Indianapolis Speedway Hall of
Famer; 1st driver to win all 4 major categories: Formula One,
Indy Cars, NASCAR stock and sports cars; team owner:
builds All-American Eagle)
1935 - Lyle Waggoner (actor: The Carol Burnett Show, The
Jimmie Rodgers Show, Wonder Woman)
1939 - Paul Sorvino (actor: Law and Order, Reds, Oh! God,
The Day of the Dolphin, Dick Tracy, Goodfellas, A Touch of
Class)
1940 - Jose Napoles (boxer)
1940 - Lester Chambers (singer, musician: harmonica: group:
The Chamber Brothers: Time Has Come Today)
1946 - Wayne Colman (football)
1946 - Al Green (singer, songwriter: Tired of Being Alone,
Let's Stay Together, You Ought to be with Me, Here I Am,
Call Me)
1948 - Dr. Mo
1951 - Max Weinberg (musician: drummer: E Street Band)
Chart Toppers: April 13
1956
Rock Island Line - Lonnie Donegan
No, Not Much! - The Four Lads
A Tear Fell - Teresa Brewer
Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins / Elvis Presley
1965
I'm Telling You Now - Freddie and The Dreamers
Stop! In the Name of Love - The Supremes
Red Roses for a Blue Lady - Vic Dana
King of the Road - Roger Miller
1974
Bennie and The Jets - Elton John
Hooked on a Feeling - Blue Swede
Seasons in the Sun - Terry Jacks
A Very Special Love Song - Charlie Rich
1983
Billy Jean - Michael Jackson
Do You Really Want to Hurt Me - Culture Club
Come on Eileen - Dexys Midnight Runners
We've Got Tonight - Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton
1919 Amritsar Massacre
On this day in 1919, a scene of great carnage took place in
Amritsar, India's holy city of the Sikh religion. British and Gurkha
troops, acting under the direction of British Brigadier General
Reginald Dyer, massacred at least 379 unarmed demonstrators
meeting at the Jallianwala Bagh, a city park enclosed on all
sides. Most of those killed were Indian nationalists meeting to
protest the British government's forced conscription of Indian
soldiers and the heavy war tax imposed against the Indian people.
A few days earlier, in reaction to a recent escalation in protests,
Amritsar was placed under martial law and handed over to
Brigadier General Dyer, who banned all meetings and gatherings
in the city. On April 13, the day of the Sikh Baisakhi festival, tens
of thousand of people came to Amritsar from surrounding villages
to attend the city's traditional fairs. Thousands of these people,
many unaware of Dyer's recent ban on public assemblies,
convened at Jallianwala Bagh, where a nationalist demonstration
was being held. Dyer's troops surrounded the park and without
warning opened fire on the crowd, killing several hundred and
wounding thousands. Dyer, who in a subsequent investigation
admitted to ordering the attack for its "moral effect" on the people
of the region, had his troops continue the murderous barrage until
all their artillery was exhausted. British authorities later removed
him from his post. The massacre stirred nationalist feelings
across India, and had a profound effect on one of the movement's
leaders, Mohandas Gandhi. During World War I, Gandhi had
actively supported the British in the hope of winning partial
autonomy for India, but after the Amritsar Massacre he became
convinced that India must accept nothing less than full
independence. To achieve this end, Gandhi began organizing his
first campaigns of mass civil disobedience against Britain's
oppressive rule.
During World War II, representatives from the Soviet Union and
Japan signed a five-year neutrality agreement. Although traditional
enemies, the nonaggression pact allowed both nations to free up
large numbers of troops occupying disputed territory in Manchuria
and Outer Mongolia to be used for more pressing purposes. The
Soviet-Japanese pact came nearly two years after the Soviet
Union signed a similar agreement with Nazi Germany, dividing
much of Eastern Europe between the two countries. The
Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact allowed Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to
move German forces to the West for his major offensives of 1939
to 1941, and bought Soviet leader Joseph Stalin time to complete
his forced industrialization of the U.S.S.R. and prepare the empire
for its inevitable involvement in World War II. However, on June 22,
1941, just two months after the Soviet-Japanese nonaggression
pact was signed, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the
German invasion of the U.S.S.R. Stalin was caught by surprise,
and the German Wehrmacht penetrated deep into the Soviet
Union, killing millions of Russians and reaching the outskirts of
Moscow before the Red Army was able to begin a successful
counter-offensive. Although Japanese offensives into the eastern
U.S.S.R. during this time may have resulted in the defeat of the
Soviet Union, Japan itself was forced to concentrate all of its
resources in a resistance against the massive U.S.
counter-offensive in the Pacific, underway by the fall of 1942. At
the Yalta conference in early 1945, Joseph Stalin, on the urging of
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, agreed to declare war
against Japan within three months of Germany's defeat. On
August 8, 1945, true to Stalin's promise, the Soviet Union
declared war against Japan, and the next day the Red Army
invaded Manchuria. The same day, the United States dropped its
second atomic bomb on Japan, devastating Nagasaki as it had
Hiroshima with the first atomic bomb three days earlier. Faced
with the choice of destruction or surrender, Japan chose the
latter. On August 15, one week after the Soviet declaration of war,
Emperor Hirohito announced the Japanese surrender on national
radio, urging the Japanese people to "endure the unendurable."
During World War II, the first sinking of a German submarine by a
U.S. naval vessel in the Battle of the Atlantic occurred off Wimble
Shoal, near Hatteras, North Carolina. While escorting Allied
vessels along the southern U.S. Atlantic coast, the U.S.
destroyer Roper, captained by Lieutenant Commander Hamilton
Howe, located and successfully pursued the German submarine
U-85. By early the next morning, the enemy submarine had been
destroyed. The victory came six weeks after U.S. Navy Ensign
William Tepuni, flying a Lockheed-Hudson aircraft off
Newfoundland, Canada, became the first American flyer to sink a
German submarine. In 1942, German U-boats took a terrible toll
on Allied shipping and personnel. Although the British and
Americans provided armed escorts for most vessels traveling
across the Atlantic and developed improved radar and sonar
systems, hundreds of merchant ships and thousands of sailors
were lost during U-boat attacks. It was not until 1943, and the
introduction of aircraft carriers and thus extended air cover into the
escort convoys, that the German navy was forced to abandon its
efforts to control the Atlantic Ocean.
Tanzania became the first of only five foreign nations to recognize
the sovereignty of the Republic of Biafra, a breakaway state of
eastern Nigeria, on this day in 1967. In 1966, six years after
Nigeria won its independence, the Muslim Hausas in northern
Nigeria began massacring the Christian Igbos in the region,
prompting tens of thousands of Igbos to flee to the east, where
their people were the dominant ethnic group. The Igbos doubted
that Nigeria's oppressive military government would allow them to
develop, or even survive, so on May 30, 1967, Lieutenant Colonel
Chukwuemeka Ojukwu and other Igbo and non-Igbo
representatives of the area established the Republic of Biafra,
comprising the East-Central, South-Eastern, and Rivers states of
Nigeria. After diplomatic efforts by Nigeria failed to reunite the
country, war between Nigeria and Biafra broke out in July of 1967.
Ojukwu's forces made some initial advances, but Nigeria's
superior military gradually reduced the territory under Biafran
control. The breakaway state lost its oil fields--its main source of
revenue--and without the funds to import food, at least a million of
its civilian population died as a result of severe malnutrition. With
the exception of a few African states, the international community
largely ignored the plight of the Biafran people. On January 11,
Nigerian forces captured the provincial capital of Owerri, one of the
last Biafran strongholds, and Biafran leader Ojukwu was forced to
flee to the Ivory Coast. Four days later, on January 15, Biafra
surrendered to Nigeria.