Today in history—December 13

1204: The Talmudic scholar and philosopher Maimonides (Moshe ben Maimon) dies in Egypt. One of his sayings, which cannot be too often repeated in our business, is “Teach your tongue to say ‘I do not know’ and you will progress.”

1729: The English determinist philosopher Anthony Collins, a friend of John Locke, dies in London.

1642: Abel Tasman, on a voyage for the Vereinigte Oostindische Compaignie (the Dutch East India Company, known as the VOC) spies “a large high-lying land, bearing south-east of us.” He will name the place—hitherto unknown to Europeans—”Staten Landt,” but within a few years it will come to be known as Nieuw Zeeland.

1734: England and Russia sign the Anglo-Russian Commercial Treaty. Since the founding of the Muscovy Company in 1555 English merchants had long been preeminent in trade into Russia; St. Petersburg at the time is a “miniature City of London.”

1759: H. Royer Smith opens the first music store in America in Philadelphia.

1769: Dartmouth College is chartered.  Although “one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country,” said Daniel Webster later, there are those who love it.

1816: Ernst Werner von Siemens, the inventor who will found the company that bears his name, is born in Lenthe, Prussia.

1903: Orville and Wilbur Wright make their first successful heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The same day, Italo Marcioni of New Jersey receives a patent for the ice cream cone.

1904: Judge Charles Swayne of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida is impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. The Senate will subsequently fail to convict him.

1920: The League of Nations creates the International Court of Justice at the Hague.

1924: Samuel Gompers, the British-born organizer of the American Federation of Labor, dies in San Antonio, Texas.

1950: The career of actor James Dean begins with his appearance in a Pepsi commercial.

1961: American singer Jimmy Dean scores country music’s first $1 million selling album, with is Big Bad John.  On the other side of the Atlantic, an English group called the Beatles sign a contract with their future manager, Brian Epstein.

1973: The new World Football League grants its first franchise, to Detroit.

1981: Comedian Pigmeat Markham, who scored a hit with Here Come Da Judge, dies at age 75.