September 13: Holidays, Historical Events, Famous Birthdays & Zodiac Sign
On September 13, 1985, Super Mario Bros. landed on store shelves in Japan—and the world's plumbers, princesses, and turtle-stomping daydreams have never been the same since.
About September 13
September 13 feels tailor-made for the curious and the mischievous—and not by accident. It's the birthday of Roald Dahl, the British author who gave children everywhere permission to revel in the grotesque and glorious. Celebrated across the UK, Africa, and Latin America, Roald Dahl Day honors a storyteller who understood that kids rarely want their tales sanitized. He'd have appreciated the irony that his birthday shares the calendar with National Defy Superstition Day—Dahl never met a rule he didn't want to bend.
This date also carries an extraordinary musical coincidence. In 1814, Francis Scott Key watched British ships fail to capture Baltimore and jotted down a poem that became the United States national anthem. Exactly 171 years later, in 1985, Nintendo released Super Mario Bros. in Japan, launching a theme song as universally recognizable as any anthem. From a dawn bombardment at Fort McHenry to a plumber racing through the Mushroom Kingdom, September 13 has soundtracked revolutions both martial and digital.
It's also a day of handshakes and hard-won steps forward. In 1993, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat clasped hands at the White House after signing the Oslo Accords, offering a fleeting glimpse of Middle East peace. On the same date in 1933, Elizabeth McCombs became the first woman elected to New Zealand's Parliament, and in 1948 Margaret Chase Smith won a U.S. Senate seat, becoming the first woman to serve in both chambers of Congress. Virgo energy—methodical, determined, quietly revolutionary—runs through every one of these moments.
Holidays & Observances on September 13
- Day of the Programmer, during a non-leap year. (Russia)
- Día de los Niños Héroes (Mexico)
- Engineer's Day (Mauritius)
- Roald Dahl Day (Africa, United Kingdom, Latin America)
Fun & National Days on September 13
- International Chocolate Day — Pair this with Roald Dahl Day for a doubly delicious tribute to the world's favorite confection.
- Fortune Cookie Day — Crack open a cookie and let a tiny slip of paper deliver your next big life decision—or at least your lottery numbers.
- Bald is Beautiful Day — Polish that dome and wear it proudly—today celebrates every smooth, confident, hair-free head out there.
- National Defy Superstition Day — Walk under a ladder, open an umbrella indoors, and pet a black cat just to prove luck is what you make it.
- Kids Take Over The Kitchen Day — Hand the spatula to your children and brace yourself—dinner might be questionable, but the memories are priceless.
- National Grandparents Day — Call, visit, or write to the elders who shaped your story while they can still hear how much they matter.
- 9 × 13 Day
- Day of the Homeland (Germany)
- National Cachaça Day (Brazil)
- National Celiac Awareness Day
On This Day in History
- -585 — Rome's King Lucius Tarquinius Priscus celebrated a triumph for defeating the Sabines and accepting the surrender of Collatia.
- 533 — Byzantine general Belisarius crushed Gelimer's Vandal forces at the Battle of Ad Decimum, opening the path toward retaking North Africa.
- 1609 — Explorer Henry Hudson sailed into the river that would eventually carry his name, charting a waterway central to New York's future.
- 1788 — The Confederation Congress designated New York City as the temporary U.S. capital and set the date for the nation's first presidential election.
- 1814 — Francis Scott Key penned his poem about Fort McHenry's defense during the failed British assault on Baltimore, later becoming the U.S. national anthem.
- 1848 — Railroad worker Phineas Gage survived a 1.25-inch iron rod driven through his skull, sparking landmark debates about brain function and personality.
- 1899 — A British team led by Halford Mackinder completed the first recorded ascent of Batian, the 17,058-foot tallest peak of Mount Kenya.
- 1906 — Alberto Santos-Dumont's 14-bis achieved a short hop in Paris, marking the first powered fixed-wing flight recorded in Europe.
- 1956 — IBM introduced the 305 RAMAC, the first commercial computer equipped with magnetic disk storage, revolutionizing data retrieval.
- 1971 — New York state police and National Guardsmen stormed Attica Prison to end an inmate uprising, resulting in 43 total deaths.
- 1985 — Nintendo launched Super Mario Bros. for the Famicom in Japan, inaugurating the most celebrated platforming franchise in gaming history.
- 1993 — Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands at the White House after signing the Oslo Accords.
Famous Birthdays on September 13
- 1819 — Clara Schumann, German pianist and composer who shaped Romantic-era music and maintained a towering concert career for over six decades.
- 1857 — Milton S. Hershey, American confectioner who founded The Hershey Company and built a Pennsylvania town devoted to chocolate and community.
- 1874 — Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian composer who pioneered atonality and the twelve-tone method, permanently reshaping 20th-century music.
- 1903 — Claudette Colbert, American actress and Academy Award winner who lit up 1930s and '40s Hollywood in films like It Happened One Night.
- 1916 — Roald Dahl, British novelist whose darkly playful children's books, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Matilda, became worldwide classics.
- 1924 — Maurice Jarre, French composer whose sweeping scores for Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago earned him multiple Academy Awards.
- 1944 — Jacqueline Bisset, English actress whose elegant performances in Bullitt and The Deep made her an international film icon across five decades.
- 1944 — Peter Cetera, American singer-songwriter and bassist who fronted Chicago before launching a solo career filled with soft-rock hits.
- 1977 — Fiona Apple, American singer-songwriter and pianist whose raw, literate albums redefined alternative pop beginning in the late 1990s.
- 1993 — Niall Horan, Irish singer who rose to fame with One Direction before establishing a successful solo career in pop and folk-rock.