On This Day June 13

• In 323 B.C., the self-made god, Alexander the Great, died after a prolonged period of feasting. The Macedonian Greek hero had never lost a battle. His empire stretched from India to the Persian Gulf, and he tried to unite Macedonia and Persia by marrying a Persian wife and bribing 10,000 of his soldiers to do the same. His mother had told him that his father was Zeus, King of the Gods, so he decided he should be a god too. When he died he was only 32, and at least one Athenian refused to believe it. “If Alexander were really dead,” he said, “the stench of the corpse would fill the world.”

• In 1825, President John Quincy Adams almost drowned when his leaky canoe foundered in the middle of the Potomac. The president, who was famous for his early morning dips in the nude, was crossing the river with his French servant so that he might enjoy the swim back. When the trouble occurred the servant, who was already naked, easily made it to the shore, but Adams, still wearing his pantaloons and thick shirt, only succeeded after a desperate struggle. His survival was a tribute to his fitness – he was 37 years old! 

— from Today’s the Day! by Jeremy Beadle (Signet)