What Happened On This Day – April 13
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1997 Tiger Woods becomes the youngest ever golfer to win the Masters Tournament
The then 21-year old sportsman was also the first person of African heritage to win a major golf title. Tiger Woods is considered one of the most successful golfers of all time.
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1970 An oxygen tank explodes on Apollo 13, leaving the spacecraft crippled
The emergency prompted Jack Swigert's famous quote “Houston, we've had a problem”. The crew managed to return to Earth safely.
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1970 Mikis Theodorakis is freed
The Greek composer and politician was interned in the concentration camp of Oropos by the right-wing military junta. The solidarity movement demanding his release included Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, and Harry Belafonte.
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1960 The world's first satellite navigation system is launched
Transit 1B was primarily used by the U.S. Navy to update the navigation systems aboard their Polaris submarines.
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1919 British troops massacre around 400 unarmed civilians in India
Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered his men to shoot into the crowd, in his own words “to punish the Indians for disobedience.” The Indian independence movement grew considerably after the Amritsar massacre.
Births On This Day,
April 13
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1963 Garry Kasparov
Russian chess player
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1949 Christopher Hitchens
English/American journalist, author
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1924 Stanley Donen
American director, choreographer
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1906 Samuel Beckett
Irish/French author, playwright, director, Nobel Prize laureate
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1743 Thomas Jefferson
American politician, 3rd President of the United States
Deaths On This Day,
April 13
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2009 Harry Kalas
American sportscaster
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1954 Angus Lewis Macdonald
Canadian politician
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1938 Grey Owl
English/Canadian environmentalist, author
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1882 Bruno Bauer
German historian, philosopher
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1868 Tewodros II
of Ethiopia