Today in History - History - December 13th

1990South African President De Klerk meets with Nelson Mandela to talk of end of apartheid

1970Neil Simon's "Gingerbread Lady" premieres in NYC

1956Dodgers trade Jackie Robinson to Giants for pitcher Dick Littlefield & $35,000 Robinson retires

2003Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit (see Operation Red Dawn).

1950James Dean begins his career with an appearance in a Pepsi commercial

1577Sir Francis Drake sets sail from England to go around world

1833HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin arrives in Port Deseado, Patagonia

1964Shirley Englehorn & Sam Snead wins Haig & Haig Mixed Foursome Golf

1964In El Paso, Tx, LBJ & Mexican Pres Gustavo Diaz Ordaz set off an explosion diverting Rio Grande, to reshape US-Mexico border

2007The Mitchell Report is publicly released listing the names of 89 Major League Baseball players that have presumably used anabolic steroids and human growth hormones. Notable players to be named include Roger Clemens and Miguel Tejada.

1818Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln and First Lady (1861-65)

1929Christopher Plummer, Toronto Ontario, Canadian actor (Sound of Music, Doll's House)

1989Taylor Swift, Reading, Pennsylvania, American singer/songwriter (Our Song)

1911Kenneth Patchen, Niles, Ohio, poet/novelist (Cloth of the Tempest), (d. 1972)

2003Italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti (68) weds Nicoletta Mantovani at Modena Italy's Teatro Comunale

1951British PM Margaret Thatcher (26) weds businessman Denis Thatcher (36) at Wesley's Chapel in City Road, London

1961Grandma Moses [Anna M], US painter, dies at 101

1990Alice Marble, California, tennis star, dies at 77