Following are some of the major events to have occurred on August 13
Reuters
1910 - Florence Nightingale, British nurse in the Crimean War, died.
1912 - Jules Massenet, French composer of the operas "Werther" and "Manon", died.
1920 - British golfer Edward Ray wins U.S. Open, becoming the tournament's oldest champion.
1961 - The border between East and West Berlin was closed at the Brandenburg Gate, heralding construction of the Berlin Wall.
1985 - A Japan Air LinesBoeing 747 crashed into Mount Osutaka, killing all but four of the 524 people aboard.
1994 - Manfred Woerner, NATO Secretary-General, who led the 16-nation Western alliance through the end of the Cold War, died of cancer.
1996 - Data sent back by the Galileo space probe indicated there may be water on one of Jupiter's moons, heightening the possibility it could support a primitive life form.
1998 - Julien Green, a distinguished and prolific American writer who spent most of his life in France, died aged 97. In 1971 he became the first non-French member of the Academie Francaise.
2001 - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi paid homage at a controversial shrine for war dead where executed war criminals are also honoured, sparking outrage both at home and abroad.
2004 - The XXVIII Olympiad opened in the Greek capital Athens with a triumphal pageant to welcome home the Olympic Games.
2008 - American swimmer Michael Phelps became the most successful Olympian of all time with a career tally of 14 golds after the Beijing games, overtaking an elite group including Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis who had won nine golds.
