On this day: America out of Vietnam | Jack Nicklaus

Events, birthdays and anniversaries for 13 August

On this day in 1937, Japanese marines marched the streets of Chinas largest city as the bloody Battle of Shanghai began. Picture: Getty

13 AUGUST

1784: Britain’s India Act placed East India Company under government-appointed Board of Control.

1788: Prussia joined British-Dutch Alliance to form Triple Alliance for preserving peace in Europe.

1792: French revolutionaries imprisoned France’s Royal family.

1889: The coin-operated phone was patented in the United States.

1898: American forces in Philippines captured Manila from the Spanish.

1934: The Austin Seven two-seater Opal was launched by the Austin car factory in Birmingham.

1937: Japanese attacked Chinese city of Shanghai.

1945: World Zionist Congress demanded admission of one million Jews to Palestine.

1961: East German border guards stopped vehicles passing through the Brandenburg Gate, thus sealing the border and preventing exodus to the West. Barbed wire was erected, later to be replaced by the Berlin Wall.

1964: The last hangings in Britain took place: Peter Allen at Walton prison, Liverpool, and John Walby at Strangeways prison, Manchester.

1966: Chairman Mao announced Cultural Revolution in China.

1972: Last American troops pulled out of Vietnam.

1986: Jack Nicklaus won the US Masters golf championship for a record sixth time.

1991: Prince of Wales resigned as patron of National Museums of Scotland when design by modernist architects Gordon Benson and Alan Forsyth won contest for new £25m building.

1994: Fifty-nine people were injured when a runaway locomotive with no-one on board crashed into a crowded InterCity train in Edinburgh.

1995: Alison Hargreaves, 33, the first woman to climb Everest solo and without oxygen, was one of seven climbers swept to their deaths in a storm after a successful ascent of the 28,244ft Himalayan peak K2, three months after her Everest triumph.

2004: 156 Congolese Tutsi refugees were massacred at the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi.

2008: Michael Phelps set the Olympic record for the most gold medals (eight in Beijing and six in Athens) won by an individual in Olympic history with his win in the men’s 200m butterfly.

BIRTHDAYS

Fidel Castro, president of Cuba 1959-2008, 87; David Feherty, golfer and commentator, 55; Louis Frémaux, French conductor, 92; Paul Greengrass, English film director, 58; Marie Helvin, Japanese fashion model, 61; Madhur Jaffrey CBE, Indian actress and cookery writer, 80; Susan Jameson, British actress, 69; Feargal Sharkey, rock singer, 55; Alan Shearer, footballer, 43; John Slattery, American actor, 51; Phil “The Power” Taylor, British darts player, 53.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1818 Lucy Stone, feminist and reformer; 1860 Annie Oakley (Phoebe Anne Moses), American markswoman and entertainer; 1888 John Logie Baird, Helensburgh-born television pioneer; 1899 Sir Alfred Hitchcock, film producer; 1912 Ben Hogan, golfer; 1935 Rod Hull, entertainer.

Deaths: 1826 Rene Laennec, physician who invented and named the stethoscope; 1910 Florence Nightingale, nurse and hospital reformer; 1946 HG Wells, writer and science fiction pioneer; 1977 Henry Williamson, author; 1998 Eve Boswell, singer; 2012 Helen Gurley Brown, American author and editor.