Today in History, August 13th
On August 13, 1961, East Germany sealed off West Berlin with barbed wire, the start of the Berlin Wall. Plus the fall of Tenochtitlán in 1521.
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August 13 is best known for 1961, when East German soldiers strung barbed wire across Berlin overnight, the first step in building the Berlin Wall. The date also saw Hernán Cortés capture the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1521 and the Summer Olympics return to Athens in 2004.
The big story: Berlin is divided overnight (1961)
By 1961, East Germany had a people problem: its people kept leaving. Somewhere between 2.5 million and 3 million had crossed to the West in the dozen years before, and the pace had reached about 1,000 a day. East German leader Walter Ulbricht got Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s approval to seal off every route between Communist East Berlin and the democratic West. Through the night of August 12–13, 1961, soldiers laid down more than 100 miles of barbed wire just inside the East Berlin line, and residents woke up on August 13 to a divided city. The wire soon gave way to a concrete wall 96 miles long, with guard towers, machine gun posts and searchlights, later raised to 10 feet. About 5,000 East Germans still managed to escape over the years, and others died trying. The barrier stood until November 9, 1989, when crowds from both sides began climbing on it and tearing it apart. Germany formally reunified on October 3, 1990.
More events on August 13
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1521 | Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés captured Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital where Mexico City now stands, after a siege of about three months, and took Emperor Cuauhtémoc prisoner. |
| 1878 | Memphis restaurant owner Kate Bionda died of yellow fever, the first victim of an epidemic that emptied much of the city. |
| 1898 | U.S. Army troops took control of Manila, in the Philippines, during the Spanish-American War. |
| 1941 | Henry Ford showed off his “Soybean Car,” with a plastic body made partly from soy. It weighed half as much as a steel car but never went into production. |
| 1952 | Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton recorded “Hound Dog” in Los Angeles, four years before Elvis Presley’s version. |
| 1967 | The crime film Bonnie and Clyde, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the outlaw couple, opened. |
| 1981 | President Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act, a package of tax and budget cuts, at his California home. |
| 1982 | Fast Times at Ridgemont High opened in theaters across the U.S. |
| 1995 | New York Yankees great Mickey Mantle died of liver cancer at 63. |
| 2004 | The Summer Olympics opened in Athens, which had hosted the first modern Summer Games in 1896. |
Born on August 13
- 1818: Lucy Stone, American suffragist and co-founder of the American Woman Suffrage Association, born in West Brookfield, Massachusetts.
- 1899: Alfred Hitchcock, film director and master of suspense, born in London.
- 1926: Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary who led Cuba for about half a century, born near Birán.
Sources
- Berlin is divided, History.com
- This Day in History: August 13, History.com
- On This Day: August 13, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Lucy Stone, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Alfred Hitchcock, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Fidel Castro, Encyclopaedia Britannica
