TODAY IN HISTORY
Jul 13 1793
French revolutionary writer Jean-Paul Marat is stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, as she gives him a list of names to be guillotined. The assassination inspired the famous painting by Jacques Louis David; Corday was executed four days after slaying Marat.
Jul 13 1917
The first appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three young shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. A later apparition that year was witnessed by 70,000 people in some manner of mass hallucination. The B.V.M. entrusted the children with three prophecies of the coming apocalypse, the third of which the Vatican retains in a locked wooden box, refusing to reveal it until after 1960. (They don't get around to it until 2000.)
Jul 13 1946
Cheech Marin's birthday. He's actually (gasp) Iranian, and his name is Richard.
Jul 13 1985
President Ronald Reagan has a polyp removed from his colon.
Jul 13 1994
Tonya Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, is sentenced in Portland, Oregon, to two years in prison for his role in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan. He serves six months.