1. On October 13, 1844, President James K. Polk visited Davenport, Iowa, as part of his re-election campaign tour. This was the first visit by a sitting president to Iowa.

2. One of Iowa's deadliest tornadoes occurred on October 13, 1964, in the town of Belmond. The tornado was rated F5, the highest possible intensity, and destroyed much of the town, killing six people and injuring over 170.

3. On October 13, 1987, the first of five Great Lakes freighters sunk during a severe storm. The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was carrying iron ore from Superior, Wisconsin to Detroit, Michigan when it was hit by 35-foot waves and sank, killing all 29 crew members on board. The shipwreck is commemorated in Gordon Lightfoot's iconic song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

4. The Iowa Hawkeyes played in one of the most memorable college football games in history on October 13, 1985. The game, known as the "Marvelous in Michigan" game, saw Iowa defeat Michigan 12-10 on a last-second field goal by kicker Rob Houghtlin.

5. On October 13, 2015, the Cedar Rapids Freedom Festival announced that it had set a new world record for the world's largest amount of popcorn popped in a single popper. The festival used a massive 4,200-pound popper to pop 5,000 pounds of popcorn in just over an hour.