Today is Tuesday, Oct. 13, the 286th day of 2026. There are 79 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On Oct. 13, 2016, Bob Dylan was named winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.
Also on this date:
In 1792, the cornerstone of the Executive Mansion, later known as the White House, was laid by President George Washington during a ceremony in the District of Columbia.
In 1932, President Herbert Hoover and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes laid the cornerstone for the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington.
In 1943, Italy declared war on Germany, its onetime Axis partner.
In 1960, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees in Game 7, 10-9, on a home run hit by Bill Mazeroski.
In 1972, a Uruguayan chartered flight carrying 45 people crashed in the Andes. In order to stay alive, survivors resorted to feeding off the remains of some of the dead; 16 people were rescued more than two months later.
In 1999, in Boulder, Colorado, the JonBenet Ramsey grand jury was dismissed after 13 months of work with prosecutors saying there wasn’t enough evidence to charge anyone in the 6-year-old beauty queen’s killing.
In 2010, 33 men were rescued from a collapsed Chilean mine after being lifted one by one in capsules 69 days after they were trapped 2,300 feet (700 meters) underground.
In 2011, Raj Rajaratnam (rahj rah-juh-RUHT’-nuhm), the hedge fund billionaire at the center of one of the biggest insider-trading cases in U.S. history, was sentenced by a federal judge in New York to 11 years behind bars. He was released early, in 2019.
In 2021, Hollywood’s Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner, blasted into space aboard a ship built by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company; the “Star Trek” actor and three fellow passengers reached an altitude of 66.5 miles (107 kilometers) during a flight lasting just over 10 minutes.
In 2024, SpaceX completed its boldest test flight yet of its enormous Starship rocket, catching the returning booster back at the Texas launch pad minutes after liftoff. The launch tower’s huge metal arms caught the 232-foot (71-meter) stainless steel booster on its slow descent.
Today’s Birthdays:
- Gospel singer Shirley Caesar is 88.
- Singer-musician Paul Simon is 85.
- Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is 84.
- Singer-musician Sammy Hagar is 79.
- Singer/TV personality Marie Osmond is 67.
- NBA coach Doc Rivers is 65.
- Football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice is 64.
- Baseball Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman is 59.
- Olympic silver medal figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is 57.
- Actor Sacha Baron Cohen is 55.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Paul Pierce is 49.
- Singer Ashanti is 46.
- Olympic gold medalist swimmer Ian Thorpe is 44.
- Actor Caleb McLaughlin is 25.
