August 13

From Metapedia

[edit] Events

• 1521 - Tenochtitlán (present day Mexico City) falls to conquistador Hernán Cortés.
• 1920 - Polish-Soviet War: Battle of Warsaw begins, lasts till August 25. The Red Army is defeated.
• 1940 - World War II: Battle of Britain begins - The Luftwaffe launches a series of attacks on British fighter bases and radar installations.
• 1960 - The Central African Republic declares independence from France.
• 1961 - The German Democratic Republic closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin, to thwart its inhabitants' attempts to escape to the West.

[edit] Births

• 1871 - Karl Liebknecht, German communist (d. 1919)
• 1899 - Alfred Hitchcock, English film director (d. 1980)
• 1926 - Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary and politician

[edit] Deaths

• 1910 - Florence Nightingale, English nurse (b. 1820)
• 1946 - H. G. Wells, English writer (b. 1866)