This Day in History: March 13

Here’s a brief look back in time for this day, March 13.

In 1813, Uncle Sam, the cartoon icon that’ll later be plastered on military recruitment posters across America, is first printed on an edition of the New York Lantern Weekly. Initially developed by Frank Bellew, it’s commonly attributed to a meat inspector named Samuel Wilson, who had served in the role during the War of 1812. Packages containing meat shipped from E&S Wilson – the company Wilson worked for – later became a colloquialism between soldiers, calling Wilson “Uncle Sam”. The character would go through several evolutions until James Montgomery Flagg’s famous caricature of a greying, thin man with a top hat bearing the American flag; his signature phrase exclaiming “I Want YOU for U.S. Army” was emboldened in red ink towards the bottom of the poster. American propaganda still uses this photo in a variety of forms to this day.

In 1881, Russian Tzar Alexander II is assassinated by a member of the Narodnaya Volya (or People’s Will”). The revolutionary group was formed to topple the Tsarist system, which was Russia’s form of government until Tsar Nicholas II’s own assassination in 1918. Alexander II was one of the more liberal rulers of his time, having helped abolish Russian serfdom in 1861. In Russia, serfs were unfree peasants who could be openly traded amongst landowners. Unlike slavery, the land peasants worked on were sold alongside the peasants themselves. Russian royalty was the only class who could own land. However, historians dispute whether Tsar Alexander II abolished this system out of the kindness of his heart, or under fear of a peasant uprising.