Happy Birthday August 13

The son of a Scottish minister, television pioneer John Logie Baird, was born in Helensburgh, a small coastal town in the west of Scotland on August 13, 1888. An inventor from a young age, as a boy Baird installed not only a telephone exchange in his father’s manse but also a system of electric lighting, even entangling passing traffic in the wires. He demonstrated the first wirelessly transferred image in January 1926.

The movie director Sir Alfred Hitchcock was born on August 13, 1899 in Leytonstone, which is now part of London. Around the age of five, young Alfred was sent by his father to the local police station with a note asking the officer to lock him away for five minutes as punishment for behaving badly. This incident not only implanted a lifetime fear of policemen in him, but such harsh treatment and wrongful accusations would be found frequently throughout his films.

Fidel Castro was born out of wedlock at his father's Cuban farm on Friday August 13, 1926. Known as a rebellious, loud, and troublesome child, Fidel Castro was sent to a Jesuit boarding school in Santiago de Cuba, where he was often teased by his wealthier classmates who called him a "peasant." Castro became embroiled in student activism while studying law at the University of Havana. After Batista's overthrow in 1959, he established a government based on Marxist-Leninist principles.

For more August 13 anniversaries, including the birthdays of sharpshooter Annie Oakley, Fiat S.p.A. founder Giovanni Agnelli and Ethel Roosevelt Derby, the youngest daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, check out OnThatDay.