Maili's Wikipedia Meme

Oooo, I love this! Ok, here are the rules:

1. Go to Wikipedia.
2. In the Search box, type your birth month and day (but not year).
3. List three events that happened on your birthday.
4. List two important birthdays and one interesting death.
5. Post this in your journal.

My birthday: December 13th.

Events... all relatively recent.:

• 1939 - Battle of the River Plate - Captain Hans Langsdorff of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee engages with Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles.
  
  This happened right off the coast of Montevideo. The Graf Spee came into port for a couple of days (Uruguay was still a neutral party at the time) to try and do repairs, and my grandpa always told me how everyone had gathered on the beach to see what happened as it headed out, because the 3 British ships were waiting for it right outside. Well, what happened was a big boom, because Langsdorff decided to scuttle his ship, rather than let it fall into Allied hands.



• 2003 - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit (see Operation Red Dawn).
  
  That one I remember. Saw it on the news when I woke up that day after sleeping late.



• 2004 - Former Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet is put under house arrest, after being sued under accusations over 9 kidnapping actions and manslaughter. The house arrest is lifted the same day on appeal.
  
  Another one I remember. It pissed me off, when they lifted it.

Births:

• 1854 - Thomas Watson, American assistant to Alexander Graham Bell (d. 1934)
  
  He's the one Graham Bell called, right?



• 1953 - Ben Bernanke - American economist
  
  Hey, a colleague!

Deaths

• 1721 - Alexander Selkirk, Scottish sailor and castaway (b. 1676)
  
  Interesting!