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Margaret Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was an Anglo-Indian Egyptologist, archaeologist, historian, and folklorist. The first female archaeology lecturer in the United Kingdom, she worked at University College London and served as president of the Folklore Society. Encouraged in her research by the department head Flinders Petrie, she established a reputation in Egyptology for her excavations of the Osireion temple and Saqqara cemetery. She taught at the British Museum and also the Manchester Museum, where she led the unwrapping of one of the mummies from the Tomb of the Two Brothers. A first-wave feminist, Murray joined the Women's Social and Political Union. She also focused her research on the witch-cult hypothesis, a theory that the witch trials of early modern Christendom were targeted at a pre-Christian religion devoted to a Horned God; this theory was later discredited, but it gained widespread attention and provided the basis for Wicca. (Full article...)

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In the news

Mark Rutte

In the Netherlands, the governing coalition collapses and Prime Minister Mark Rutte (pictured) resigns.
In Brazil, the Superior Electoral Court bars former president Jair Bolsonaro from running for political office until 2030 for abuse of power before the 2022 general election.
Riots break out across France after a 17-year-old is fatally shot by police in Paris.
In Russia, the Wagner mercenary group stands down after rebelling against the government.

On this day

July 13

A tape recorder from Nixon's Oval Office

1260 – Livonian Crusade: Samogitian forces defeated Teutonic knights and the Livonian Order at the Battle of Durbe.
1643 – English Civil War: Royalist forces defeated the Parliamentarians at the Battle of Roundway Down near Devizes, Wiltshire.
1913 – While on a campaign in Bulgaria, the Romanian Army suffered a cholera outbreak that led to 1,600 deaths.
1973 – Watergate scandal: Under questioning by Senate investigators, White House deputy chief of staff Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of a secret taping system (tape recorder pictured) in the Oval Office.
2003 – French Directorate-General for External Security personnel aborted an operation to rescue Colombian politician Íngrid Betancourt from FARC guerrillas, resulting in a political scandal.

Wu Yuanheng (d. 815)
Cataldo Amodei (d. 1693)
Ba Cụt (d. 1956)
Leda Valladares (d. 2012)

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Simone Veil (née Jacob; 13 July 1927 – 30 June 2017) was a French magistrate and politician who served as Health Minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. As health minister, she is best remembered for advancing women's rights in France, in particular for the 1975 law that legalized abortion in France, today known as Veil Act (French: Loi Veil). From 1998 to 2007, she was a member of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest legal authority. She is shown here receiving the Centennial Award at the first Four Freedoms Award ceremony in 1982.

Photograph credit: Rob C. Croes, Anefo; restored by Adam Cuerden

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