February 13 Birthday
On February 13, 1633, Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome to stand trial before the Roman Inquisition. He was sixty-nine and in poor health. His crime: publishing Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which argued for the Copernican view that the Earth orbits the Sun. The book was written as a dialogue among three characters — a Copernican, an Aristotelian, and a neutral moderator. The Aristotelian character was named Simplicio, and the Pope believed it was a caricature of himself. Galileo was shown the instruments of torture and threatened. He recanted. The legend says he muttered "Eppur si muove" — "And yet it moves" — but this almost certainly never happened. He was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life, which lasted nine more years. In 1935, Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr., the twenty-month-old son of the famous aviator. The baby had been taken from the Lindbergh home in New Jersey on March 1, 1932. A ransom of $50,000 was paid, but the child was found dead two months later. Hauptmann was caught two years later when he spent a marked ransom bill. The trial was a media circus — 700 reporters covered it, and it was the first trial broadcast on radio. The evidence was circumstantial — handwriting analysis and wood grain matching — but Hauptmann was convicted and executed in 1936, maintaining his innocence to the end. The case led Congress to make kidnapping a federal crime. France detonated its first atomic bomb on February 13, 1960, at Reggane, in the Algerian Sahara. The device, code-named Gerboise Bleue (Blue Jerboa), was four times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan. The test made France the fourth nuclear power, after the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain. The fallout contaminated the desert for hundreds of miles. The French military did not warn the local population — Tuareg and other nomadic groups received significant radiation exposure, and cancer rates in the region remain elevated. France conducted 210 nuclear tests, many in the Pacific, until signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. George Segal, born this day in 1934, was a sculptor who wrapped live models in plaster bandages to create ghostly white figures of ordinary people — a man sitting on a toilet, a couple in bed, a bus driver. The sculptures were uncanny and melancholic. Segal's work is in the collections of MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney. Stockard Channing, born this day in 1944, was thirty-three when she played Rizzo in Grease, a role that defined her despite a distinguished Broadway career. She was nominated for a Tony six times. People born on February 13 fall under the zodiac sign of Aquarius. The birthstone is Amethyst and the birth flower is Violet. Historical events on February 13 include 1633: Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition, 1935: Bruno Hauptmann convicted of kidnapping and murdering the Lindbergh baby, 1960: France tests its first atomic bomb (code-named Gerboise Bleue). Famous people born on February 13 include George Segal (1934), Stockard Channing (1944), Bess Truman (1885).