April 13: Fun Facts about Today in History

(April 13, 1895)
On this day in 1895, French officer Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned on Devils Island, off the coast of French Guiana, after being accused of transferring military secrets to Germany and convicted in an irregular trial amid a backdrop of anti-Semitism.

(April 13, 1906)
Samuel Beckett, the Nobel Prize-winning playwright and critic, is thought to have been born on this day in Ireland.

(April 13, 1909)
Eudora Welty, an American short storey writer and novelist, was born. Her work is primarily focused on the regional manners of people inhabiting a small Mississippi town that reflects her own origins and the Delta nation.

(April 13, 1963)
Garry Kasparov, a Russian chess master who won the world championship in 1985, was born.

(April 13, 1964)
Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in Lilies of the Field (1963).

(April 13, 1997)
Tiger Woods became the first African-American golfer and the youngest player to win the Masters Tournament.

(Died on April 13, 2017)
Dan Rooney, American football executive and former United States Ambassador to Ireland (b. 1932).