How many days and weeks until December 13th?

On December 13th 1577 Francis Drake sailed from Plymouth with five ships and about 164 men, most of whom had been told they were bound for Alexandria. He came back on September 26th 1580 with one ship, the Golden Hind, fewer than sixty of the men, and enough Spanish silver to clear the Crown’s foreign debts with money to spare. Elizabeth I came aboard at Deptford for his knighting — the sword handed to the French ambassador to do it — and took a substantial share. Spain asked for the treasure back and did not get it.

Abel Tasman sighted the western coast of New Zealand on December 13th 1642, the first European known to have done so. He charted a fragment of it, never landed, lost four men in a skirmish and sailed on, calling the place Staten Landt; Dutch mapmakers later renamed it after the province of Zeeland.

American troops found Saddam Hussein on December 13th 2003, hiding in a cellar on a farm near Tikrit, eight months after the fall of Baghdad. He was tried in Iraq and executed three years later.

The Cockney accent Dick Van Dyke produced for Mary Poppins, the film that alongside his own television comedy series made him one of America’s best-loved screen actors, is still cited in Britain as the worst ever committed to film, a verdict he has borne with more grace than most would manage. He was born on December 13th 1925, and the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, one of the best-selling recording artists of her generation, on the same date in 1989.

Born on December 13th: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

Taylor Swift and Dick Van Dyke — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a December 13th birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — turquoise or lapis lazuli for the stone, Sagittarius for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

December birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual December birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

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Sagittarius constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Sagittarius for a December 13th birthday.

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Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the December birthstone and the narcissus or holly — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

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Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on December 13th, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

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