August 13 in history — On This Day

A photograph taken after the 1871 fire can make Chicago look as though its future had been decided by a wall of flame. A view from around 1905 tells a different story: tall offices, busy transport routes and commercial streets crowded again.

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August

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Alexandros Panagoulis attempts to kill Greece’s dictator

Also on August 13

Britain carries out its final executions

Fighting escalates into the Battle of Shanghai

Britain and the Netherlands settle colonial claims in London

Serbian rebels fight the Ottoman army at Mišar

This Week in History

Nickelodeon debuts its original Nicktoons

Candid Camera moves to television

Soviet Russia recognizes Latvia in a peace treaty

Russian and Japanese fleets clash in the Yellow Sea

AI History Recreations

Politics

Alexandros Panagoulis attempts to kill Greece’s dictator

War & Conflict

Fighting escalates into the Battle of Shanghai

Space

India’s Chandrayaan-3 lands on the Moon

Technology

Japan grants its first patent under the new system

History

Radio Free Europe begins broadcasting

Stanislav Petrov Assesses a False Nuclear Alarm

The Iași pogrom begins

Crime & Justice

Britain carries out its final executions

Mary Ann Nichols is killed in Whitechapel

France uses the guillotine for the last time

Science

Joseph Priestley isolates the gas later named oxygen

CERN circulates the first beam in the Large Hadron Collider

Galle and d’Arrest identify Neptune at Berlin Observatory

Medicine & Health

An electron microscope reveals the shape of Ebola virus

Ether Day: The Demonstration That Changed Surgery

A French team reports isolating a virus later named HIV

Nature & Disasters

Scientists announce the identification of the olinguito

A Rachel Carson sculpture is dedicated in Woods Hole

Loma Prieta: The Earthquake That Shook the Bay Area

Exploration

Cabrillo Enters San Diego Bay

Soviet scientists establish North Pole-1 on drifting ice

Stanley Meets Livingstone at Ujiji

Sport

Don Larsen’s Perfect Game: No Hits, No Walks, No Baserunners

Reggie Jackson’s Three Home Runs Seal a World Series

Muhammad Ali Wins the Rumble in the Jungle

Art & Literature

Evelyn Waugh publishes The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

The Catcher in the Rye is published

Jeeves and Bertie appear in an early Wodehouse story

Music

Wagner’s Siegfried premieres at Bayreuth

Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture is first performed

George Harrison and Ravi Shankar stage the Concert for Bangladesh

Film & TV

Nickelodeon debuts its original Nicktoons

Candid Camera moves to television

Pather Panchali opens in Calcutta

The Story Behind the Photo

Chicago After the Fire: From Burned Blocks to a New Skyline

Collections

The Road to the Moon

Fires That Changed Cities

The Age of Invention

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My Birthday in History

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