February 13
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Featured Event
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Farewell to Peanuts
On this day in 2000, the last Peanuts comic strip was published, just hours after the death of its creator, Charles Schulz. Peanuts had debuted in 1950. Fifty years later, it was appearing in more than 2,500 newspapers in 75 countries. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
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All the really good ideas I’d ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. So I went back to Iowa.
Painter Grant Wood, born this day in 1892 in Iowa, was a major exponent of Midwestern Regionalism, and his American Gothic, a portrait of sober, hardworking rural Midwesterners, is one of the most iconic American artworks.
Famous Birthdays
More on February 13
Mollie Isaacs/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States
2016
Antonin Scalia—who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, becoming well known for his strong legal conservatism—died in Shafter, Texas. [Why are there nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court?]
Andrew Sheargold—AFP/Getty Images
2008
Kevin Rudd, the prime minister of Australia, apologized to the Australian Aboriginal peoples for abuses they had suffered under earlier administrations.
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2002
The Scottish Parliament passed the Protection of Wild Mammals Bill, which made it illegal to hunt wild mammals with dogs, effectively outlawing foxhunting in Scotland.
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1997
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished above 7,000 for the first time. [Take our economics quiz.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1960
France detonated its first atomic bomb in the Sahara desert. [How much do you know about French history?]
Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
1950
Peter Gabriel, who was the lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis before launching a successful solo career, was born in England. [Test your knowledge of rock music.]
New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital. id. cph 3c09416)
1935
Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of kidnapping and murdering the 20-month-old son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Maintaining his innocence until his death, Hauptmann was executed more than a year later. [Read about 10 “trials of the century.”]
De Agostini Editore/age fotostock
1883
Richard Wagner, whose operas and music had a revolutionary influence on the course of Western music, died in Venice at age 69. [Take our classical composers quiz.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1692
Scottish soldiers under Archibald Campbell, 10th earl of Argyll, slaughtered members of the MacDonald clan of Glencoe after their chief, Alexander MacDonald, missed the deadline for swearing allegiance to King William III. [How much do you know about England, Scotland, and Wales?]
© Universal History Archive—Universal Images Group/Getty Images
1689
Following the Glorious Revolution, William and Mary were proclaimed king and queen of England. They ruled jointly as King William III and Queen Mary II until her death in 1694.
Photos.com/Thinkstock
1649
John Milton published his first political tract, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in response to the execution of King Charles I. In it he urged the abolition of tyrannical kingship and the execution of tyrants. [Test your knowledge of the life and works of English authors.]
Courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
1542
King Henry VIII of England had Catherine Howard, the fifth of Henry’s six wives, beheaded on charges of adultery. [Watch a video about Henry VIII’s six marriages.]