April 13

© 1997, 1998 by Paul A. Schons

April 13, 1111

Heinrich V is crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by the Pope in Rome.

April 13, 1742

Händels Messiah is performed for the first time (in Dublin).

April 13, 1881

Birth of Ludwig Binswanger in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland. Binswanger was a psychiatrist who brought the principles of existentialist phenomenology into psychotherapy. He based his diagnoses on self-image. Works by Kreuzlingen include Erinnerung an Sigmund Freud (1956) and Grundformen und Erkenntnis menschlichen Daseins (1962).

April 13, 1945

Death of Ernst Cassirer in New York. Ernst Cassirer was born in Breslau, Germany (now Worclaw, Poland) on July 28, 1874. Cassirer studied at the University of Marburg where his intellectual direction was set by Hermann Cohen, the founder of Neo-Kantianism at Marburg. In 1919 Cassirer became a professor of philosophy at the University of Hamburg and rector there after 1930. As a Jew Cassirer was forced to leave his work at Hamburg after Hitler came to power. He taught at Oxford University from 1933-1935, in Sweden from 1935-1941, at Yale from 1941-1944 and at Columbia from 1944 until his death on April 13, 1945. In his academic career he continued to develop the thought of Immanuel Kant to suit developments in the modern world. Major works by Cassirer include Die Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (1923-1929), Sprache und Mythos (1925), Die Philosophie der Aufklärung (1932) and The Myth of the State (1946).