March 13
Subject to Britannica's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Featured Event
James Montgomery Flagg— Leslie-Judge Co., N.Y./Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-USZC4-3859)
Uncle Sam cartoon appears in The Lantern
On this day in 1852, the first popular and widespread image of Uncle Sam appeared in an American publication.. The cartoon is credited to Frank Bellew, an illustrator for The Lantern, who made “Raising the Wind”—the political cartoon in which Uncle Sam first appeared. An imposing whiskered gentleman with a top hat and striped trousers, he would serve as an symbol of the United States for years to come, especially in U.S. Army recruitment posters and fliers. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (reproduction no. LC-USZ62-27885)
American activist Susan B. Anthony, who died this day in 1906, was a pioneer crusader for the woman suffrage movement in the United States, helping pave the way for the Nineteenth Amendment (1920) to the Constitution.
Famous Birthdays
More on March 13
Dave Cannon/Allsport
2021
American boxer Marvin Hagler, a durable middleweight champion who was one of the greatest boxers of the 1970s and ’80s, died at age 66. [Take our boxing quiz.]
© Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
2020
Breonna Taylor, an African American EMT, was killed by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers as they burst into her apartment during a botched raid; her death led to massive protests by Black Lives Matter activists and others who called for police reform. [What inspired the Black Lives Matter movement?]
© Abaca Press/Alamy
2013
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, was elected pope of the Roman Catholic Church; taking the name Francis I, he succeeded Benedict XVI, who had resigned. [Test your knowledge of popes and antipopes.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
2012
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., announced that it was ceasing publication of its print version, the oldest and longest continually published English-language general print encyclopaedia.
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1996
A gunman invaded a primary school in the small Scottish town of Dunblane and shot to death 16 young children and their teacher before turning a gun on himself; the school shooting resulted in various changes to British gun laws.
NASA
1986
Soviet cosmonauts Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyev were sent aloft aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to rendezvous with the space station Mir and become its first occupants. [Take our famous astronauts and cosmonauts quiz.]
© 1978 Universal Studios/EMI Films
1978
American actor John Cazale—the only actor in the history of cinema whose every movie in his career was nominated for an Academy Award for best picture—died at age 42 in Manhattan, New York. [Can You Guess: What film has received the most Oscar nominations?]
© Marschalek/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org
1938
The Anschluss, political union between Austria and Germany, was announced. [Test your knowledge of German history.]
© Topical Press Agency—Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1925
The Tennessee legislature passed a bill that banned the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in the state’s public schools; in a highly publicized trial, high-school teacher John T. Scopes was later convicted of breaking the law. [Read more about this and nine other “trials of the century.”]
AP Images
1911
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology, was born in Tilden, Nebraska. [Test your knowledge of famous Americans.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1886
American aerial photographer Albert W. Stevens, who took the first photograph of Earth’s curvature (1930) and the first photographs of the Moon’s shadow on Earth during a solar eclipse (1932), was born in Belfast, Maine. [Test your knowledge of planet Earth.]
Charles Beery/Shostal Associates
1884
Al-Mahdī began the Siege of Khartoum, capital of the Sudan, which was defended by an Egyptian garrison under the British general Charles George (“Chinese”) Gordon. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Africa.]
© Photos.com/Thinkstock
1881
Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in St. Petersburg. [Discover how much you know about Russian history.]
Photograph by Katie Chao. Brooklyn Museum, New York, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 41.1085
1870
Artist William J. Glackens, whose paintings of street scenes and urban life rejected the dictates of 19th-century academic art and introduced a matter-of-fact realism into American art, was born. [Take our artists quiz.]
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 3334), collection.nationalmuseum.se.
1809
Shortly after Sweden surrendered Finland to Russia, Swedish King Gustav IV Adolf was overthrown. [How much do you know about Swedish history?]
STScI/NASA/JPL
1781
English astronomer William Herschel observed the seventh planet from the Sun, Uranus—first described by him as “a curious either nebulous star or perhaps a comet” and named for the father of the god Saturn.
© Leemage—Corbis/Getty Images
1741
The Holy Roman emperor Joseph II, who at first was coruler (1765–80) with his mother, Maria Theresa, and then acted as sole ruler (1780–90) of the Austrian Habsburg dominions, was born. [Test your knowledge of kings and emperors.]