Date with History: September 13

Michelangelo starts David, Fort McHenry holds, and Scooby-Doo meets Super Mario.

One paperback for one calendar date: what happened on September 13, and who was born on it.

What happened on September 13

1501: Michelangelo Begins Carving David

A 26-year-old Michelangelo approached a block of Carrara marble that other sculptors had abandoned for decades as flawed and unusable. Over the next three years he carved from it a seventeen-foot David that redefined Renaissance sculpture, combining classical ideals with psychological intensity. The exact start date survives because Florence's Opera del Duomo wrote it down.

1814: The Bombardment of Fort McHenry

Francis Scott Key spent the night detained on a British warship in Baltimore Harbor, watching the Royal Navy pound Fort McHenry for twenty-five hours. Through the rockets' red glare he waited to see whether the American flag would still be flying at dawn. It was, and the poem he wrote the next morning became "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Famous birthdays on September 13

1916 — Roald Dahl
RAF fighter pilot turned children's author whose books have sold over 250 million copies.

1857 — Milton Hershey
Made milk chocolate affordable, built a town around his factory, and gave the company to an orphans' school.

Nearby dates

September 12 · September 14 · All September dates

Part of Date with History, a 366-book collection with one book for every date of the year. 5″×8″ paperback, cream paper.

Historical selections are editorially researched. This is a date-specific book, not a personalized or custom-made product.