Events

History Events on August 20

By  Con Ylarde Bote  20 Aug   289 Views

History Events on August 20

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Battle of Acheloos: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria decisively defeats a Byzantine army.

#Battle_of_Achelous_(917)

In 917

In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.

#Edmond,_Oklahoma

In 1986

Pope Clement V pardons Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, absolving him of charges of heresy.

#Pope_Clement_V

In 1308

In Mexico City, exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day.

#Leon_Trotsky

In 1940

World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".

#World_War_II

In 1940

The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit.

#WWJ_(AM)

In 1920

Canonization of the first King of Hungary, Saint Stephen and his son Saint Emeric celebrated as a National Day in Hungary.

#King_of_Hungary

In 1083

World War II: The Battle of Romania begins with a major Soviet Union offensive.

#Battle_of_Romania

In 1944

Fifty-four people are killed when a suicide bomber detonates himself at a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey.

#August_2016_Gaziantep_bombing

In 2016

Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.

#Charles_Darwin

In 1858

Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.

#Viking_program

In 1975

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.

#Supreme_Court_of_Canada

In 1998

Korean War: United Nations repel an offensive by North Korean divisions attempting to cross the Nakdong River and assault the city of Taegu.

#Korean_War

In 1950

Cold War: Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring. East German participation is limited to a few specialists due to memories of the recent war. Only Albania and Romania refuse to participate.

#Cold_War

In 1968

"Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park

#Yellowstone_fires_of_1988

In 1988

Senegal breaks from the Mali Federation, declaring its independence.

#Senegal

In 1960

Philosopher and general Wang Yangming defeats Zhu Chenhao, ending the Prince of Ning rebellion against the reign of the Ming dynasty's Zhengde Emperor.

#Wang_Yangming

In 1519

Konrad von Wallenrode becomes the 24th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order.

#Konrad_von_Wallenrode

In 1391

Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician and former MP S. Sivamaharajah is shot dead at his home in Tellippalai.

#Sri_Lankan_Civil_War

In 2006

Battle of Fallen Timbers: American troops force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi warriors into a disorganized retreat.

#Battle_of_Fallen_Timbers

In 1794

Steamboat Atlantic sank on Lake Erie after a collision, with the loss of at least 150 lives.

#Atlantic_(1848)

In 1852

After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Accords are signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the following month.

#Oslo_Accords

In 1993

The first Siege of Pensacola comes to an end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.

#Siege_of_Pensacola_(1707)

In 1707

Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam, a record that stood for 75 years until it was broken by Alex Rodriguez.

#Lou_Gehrig

In 1938

China Airlines Flight 120 caught fire and exploded after landing at Naha Airport in Okinawa, Japan.

#China_Airlines_Flight_120

In 2007

World War I: Brussels is captured during the German invasion of Belgium.

#World_War_I

In 1914

Agrippa Postumus, maternal grandson of the late Roman emperor Augustus, is executed by his guards under mysterious circumstances while in exile.

#Agrippa_Postumus

In 14

The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred to as the "Big Blowup" or the "Big Burn") occurs in northeast Washington, northern Idaho (the panhandle), and western Montana, burning approximately 3 million acres (12,000 km2).

#Great_Fire_of_1910

In 1910

Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid, Spain to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. Of the 172 people on board, 146 die immediately, and eight more later die of injuries sustained in the crash.

#Spanair_Flight_5022

In 2008

Voyager program: NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.

#Voyager_program

In 1977

President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.

#President_of_the_United_States

In 1866

Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid take control of the Levant away from the Byzantine Empire, marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia.

#Battle_of_Yarmouk

In 636

Richard I of England initiates the Massacre at Ayyadieh, leaving 2,600–3,000 Muslim hostages dead.

#Richard_I_of_England

In 1191

The Troubles: Eight British soldiers are killed and 28 wounded when their bus is hit by an IRA roadside bomb in Ballygawley, County Tyrone.

#The_Troubles

In 1988

Iran–Iraq War: A ceasefire is agreed after almost eight years of war.

#Iran-Iraq_War

In 1988

The NS Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarks on its maiden voyage.

#NS_Savannah

In 1962

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.

#Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky

In 1882

Battle of Lens: French Duc d'Enghien defeats Spaniards

#Battle_of_Lens

In 1648

War of the Spanish Succession: A multinational army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg defeats the Spanish-Bourbon army commanded by Alexandre Maître, Marquis de Bay in the Battle of Saragossa.

#War_of_the_Spanish_Succession

In 1710

Estonia, occupied by and incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, issues a decision on the re-establishment of independence on the basis of legal continuity of its pre-occupation statehood.

#Estonia

In 1991

Sun Yat-sen, Chinese revolutionary, forms the first chapter of T'ung Meng Hui, a union of all secret societies determined to bringing down the Manchus.

#Sun_Yat-sen

In 1905

Seventy-two people are killed in Japan's Hiroshima Prefecture by a series of landslides caused by a month's worth of rain that fell in one day.

#Hiroshima_Prefecture

In 2014

A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi embassy in Berlin, Germany for five hours before releasing their hostages and surrendering.

#Saddam_Hussein

In 2002

Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: More than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.

#Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union

In 1991

U.S. embassy bombings: The United States launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

#1998_United_States_embassy_bombings

In 1998

A prison riot in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, kills at least 20 people.

In 2012

Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people are killed and 15 kidnapped.

In 1997

The Firozabad rail disaster claimed 358 lives in Firozabad, India.

In 1995

The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames following a collision. Fifty-one people are killed.

In 1989

Battle of Philippeville: In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.

In 1955

World War II: One hundred sixty-eight captured allied airmen, including Phil Lamason, accused by the Gestapo of being "terror fliers", arrive at Buchenwald concentration camp.

In 1944

Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon H?s? Ky?kai (NHK) is established.

In 1926

The National Football League is organized as the American Professional Football Conference in Canton, Ohio

In 1920

The Spanish establish the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in the town that became Tucson, Arizona.

In 1775

Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis are brutally murdered by an angry mob in The Hague.

In 1672

The Second Battle of Olmedo takes places as part of a succession conflict between Henry IV of Castile and his half-brother Alfonso, Prince of Asturias.

In 1467

Con Ylarde Bote

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