“Old Bet” the first elephant ever seen in America arrived from Bengal zoo on April 13, 1796 and was exhibited in New York. She was known for her ability to draw corks from bottles using only her trunk.
Aspirin was the first drug sold in water-soluble tablets.
The word "OXYPHENBUTAZONE" is theoretically the highest possible scoring word in Scrabble, netting 1778 Points. It has never been played.
The third of ten children, most of whom died early in life, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 at the family home, a one and a half story farmhouse in Shadwell, Albermarle County, Virginia. Jefferson's father, Colonel Peter Jefferson, was a land surveyor who was one of the surveyors who laid out the virginal North Carolina border. Young Thomas liked to hunt deer and turkeys along the Rivanna River with his father or go for long walks in the mountains.
Portrait of Thomas Jefferson while in London in 1786 at 43 by Mather Brown
A lawyer by training, Jefferson began his political career in the Virginian Houses of Burgesses, and went on to serve as governor of Virginia (1779-81), minister to France (1785-89), secretary of state (1789-93), and vice president (1797-1801) under John Adams. As the 3rd president of the United States (1801-09), Jefferson's greatest achievement was probably the Louisiana Purchase, by which the United States gained extensive territories ceded to France by Spain.
For more April 13 birthdays, including French queen Catherine de' Medici, The Gunpowder Plot's Guy Fawkes, the criminal Butch Cassidy, Irish writer Samuel Beckett and African politician Julius Nyerere, check out OnThatDay.
National Scrabble Day is celebrated on April 13, the day Scrabble inventor Alfred Mosher Butts was born.
While unemployed during the depression, architect Alfred Mosher Butts created a board game in 1930 that utilized chance and skill. He called Lexiko.
Eight years later Butts came up with Criss Cross Words, a variation on Lexiko. The new game added the 15×15 gameboard and the crossword-style game play.
The first few sets Butts made he sold to family and friends but he made no money out of it.
The game went unnoticed until 1948 when James Brunot, from Connecticut, who was an entrepreneur and passionate games player, saw commercial possibilities. He bought the rights to the game, made some small changes to the rules and gave Butts a royalty on every set sold.
Brunot also changed its name to "Scrabble," a real word meaning "to grope frantically."
"The Messiah" was first performed at The Great Music Hall at Fishamble Street, Dublin on April 13, 1742, as part of a charity series of concerts that George Frideric Handel was invited to give by the Lord Lieutenant. The Anglo German composer led the concert from the harpsichord. So great was the demand for the first performance that men were asked to attend without their swords and women without the hoops in their skirts so more people could be fitted in.
The Great Music Hall where Messiah was first performed
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