See what makes February 20 special at Famous Daily.
History, birthdays, holiday, and a quote!
What happened on February 20
- February 20, 1472 "Orkney and Shetland annexed to the crown of Scotland as security for the dowry of Princess Margaret, daughter of Christian 1, King of Norway and Denmark, and wife of James 111 of Scotland."
- February 20, 1525 Swiss & German mercenaries desert François I's army
- February 20, 1547 Edward VI of England crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
- February 20, 1613 Gerard Reynst appointed Dutch Governor-General of East-Indies
- February 20, 1653 Defeat of Dutch fleet under Admiral Van Tromp by Admiral Blake off Portsmouth
- February 20, 1673 First recorded wine auction held (London)
- February 20, 1710 Johan Willem Friso becomes viceroy of Groningen Netherlands
- February 20, 1725 10 sleeping Indians scalped by whites in New Hampshire for œ100/scalp bounty
- February 20, 1732 Estates of Holland ratifies Treaty of Vienna
- February 20, 1768 First American chartered fire insurance company receives charter (Pennsylvania)
- February 20, 1792 "The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by President George Washington."
- February 20, 1792 "US postal service created; postage 6›-12«›, depending on distance"
- February 20, 1810 "Andreas Hofer, Tyrolean patriot and leader of rebellion against Napoleon's forces, was executed."
- February 20, 1811 Austria declares bankruptcy
- February 20, 1816 "Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville debuts at Teatro Argentina, with a fiasco."
- February 20, 1816 "Rossini's opera ""The Barber of Seville"" premieres in Rome"
- February 20, 1823 "English Captain James Weddell reaches 74§ 15' S, 1520 km from South Pole"
- February 20, 1831 Polish revolutionaries defeat Russians in battle of Growchow
- February 20, 1832 Charles Darwin visits Fernando Noronha in Atlantic Ocean
- February 20, 1835 "Concepcin, Chile is destroyed by an earthquake"
- February 20, 1835 "Concepci¢n, Chile destroyed by earthquake"
- February 20, 1839 Anti-duelling law was passed by US Congress
- February 20, 1846 British occupy Sikh citadel of Lahore
- February 20, 1856 "John Rutledge, Liverpool-New York steamer, hits iceberg; many die"
- February 20, 1861 Dept of Navy of Confederacy forms
- February 20, 1864 Battle of Olustee
- February 20, 1864 "Civil War Battle of Olustee, Florida"
- February 20, 1869 Tennessee Governor W C Brownlow declares martial law in Ku Klux Klan crisis
- February 20, 1872 Hydraulic electric elevator patented by Cyrus Baldwin
- February 20, 1872 In New York City the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens.
- February 20, 1872 Luther Crowell patents a machine that manufactures paper bags
- February 20, 1872 Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City.
- February 20, 1872 Silas Noble & JP Cooley patents toothpick manufacturing machine
- February 20, 1873 "The University of California opens its first medical school in San Francisco, California."
- February 20, 1877 "First cantilever bridge in US completed, Harrodsburg KY"
- February 20, 1887 "Germany, Austria-Hungary & France end Triple Alliance"
- February 20, 1895 "Abolitionist Frederick Douglass dies in Washington, D.C."
- February 20, 1895 Congress authorizes a US mint at Denver CO
- February 20, 1899 Illinois Tel & Tel granted franchise for Chicago freight tunnel system
- February 20, 1901 First territorial legislature of Hawaii convenes
- February 20, 1901 The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time.
- February 20, 1902 "Heavy surf breaks over Seal Rocks & damages Sutro Baths, San Francisco"
- February 20, 1909 Publication of the Futurist Manifesto in the French journal Le Figaro
- February 20, 1913 King O'Malley drives in the first survey peg to mark commencement of work on the construction of Canberra.
- February 20, 1917 "Ammunitions ship explodes in Archangelsk harbor, about 1,500 die"
- February 20, 1919 French premier Clemenceau injured during assassination attempt
- February 20, 1920 "Robert E. Peary, Arctic explorer, dies."
- February 20, 1921 Riza Khan Pahlevi seizes control of Iran
- February 20, 1922 "Vilnius, Lithuania, agrees to separate from Poland"
- February 20, 1927 Golfers in South Carolina arrested for violating Sabbath
- February 20, 1929 American Samoa organized as a territory of US
- February 20, 1931 California gets the go-ahead by the U.S. Congress to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
- February 20, 1931 Congress allows California to build Oakland-Bay Bridge
- February 20, 1932 Japanese troops occupy Tunhua China
- February 20, 1935 Karoline Mikkelson is first woman on Antarctica
- February 20, 1938 "UK Foreign Secretary Eden resigns, says PM Chamberlain appeased Germany"
- February 20, 1941 First transport of Jews to concentration camps leave Plotsk Poland
- February 20, 1941 Nazis order Polish Jews barred from using public transportation
- February 20, 1941 Romania breaks relations with Netherlands
- February 20, 1942 Lieutenant E H O'Hare single-handedly shoots down 5 Japanese heavy bombers. Becomes America's first World War II flying ace.
- February 20, 1943 Allied troops occupy Kasserine pass in Tunisia
- February 20, 1943 American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
- February 20, 1943 New volcano Paracutin erupts in farmer's corn patch (M‚xico)
- February 20, 1943 Phil Wrigley & B Rickey charter All-American Girls Softball League
- February 20, 1943 "The Parcutin volcano begins to form in Paricutn, Mxico."
- February 20, 1944 Batman & Robin comic strip premieres in newspapers
- February 20, 1944 "HMS WARWICK, sunk off Trevose Head, north Cornwall, south west England by 1 torpedo from German U-413."
- February 20, 1944 U.S. warplanes begin bombing German manufacturing plants during WWII.
- February 20, 1944 US takes Eniwetok Island
- February 20, 1944 "World War II: ""Big Week"" ended with American bomber raids on Nazi aircraft manufacturing centers."
- February 20, 1947 Chemical mixing error causes explosion that destroys 42 blocks in Los Angeles CA
- February 20, 1947 Lord Mountbatten appointed as last viceroy of India
- February 20, 1947 State of Prussia ceases to exist
- February 20, 1948 Czechoslovakia's non-communist minister resigns
- February 20, 1952 """African Queen"" opens at Capitol Theater in New York NY"
- February 20, 1952 Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.
- February 20, 1954 General Zahedi wins election in Persia
- February 20, 1959 The Avro Arrow program to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate.
- February 20, 1962 "John Glenn becomes the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth, aboard the spacecraft Friendship Seven."
- February 20, 1962 "Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn orbits the earth three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes, becoming the first American to orbit the earth."
- February 20, 1964 Number one hit on UK music charts - The Bachelors - Diane
- February 20, 1965 "Beatles record ""That Means a Lot"""
- February 20, 1965 Ranger 8 crashes into the moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.
- February 20, 1965 "Ranger 8 makes hard landing on the Moon, returns photos, other data"
- February 20, 1966 Author Valery Tarsis banished in USSR
- February 20, 1968 John Cleese (Monty Python) marries Connie Booth
- February 20, 1968 State troopers used tear gas to stop demonstration at Alcorn A & M
- February 20, 1971 Major General Idi Amin Dada appoints himself President of Uganda
- February 20, 1971 National Emergency Center erroneously orders US radio & TV stations to go off the air; The mistake wasn't resolved for 30 minutes
- February 20, 1974 Cher files for separation from husband Sonny Bono
- February 20, 1974 The S-3A Viking ASW aircraft was officially introduced in the Navy in ceremonies at NAS North Island VS-41 accepted the first aircaraft
- February 20, 1975 Margaret Thatcher elected leader of British Conservative Party
- February 20, 1976 The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbands.
- February 20, 1978 "4th People's Choice Awards Star Wars, Carol Burnett & Bob Hope"
- February 20, 1978 Egypt announces it is pulling its diplomats out of Cyprus
- February 20, 1983 Japan launches Tenma satellite to study x-rays (450/570 km)
- February 20, 1986 Mike Tyson sexually harasses a woman in Albany NY
- February 20, 1987 Bomb blamed on Unabomber explodes by computer store in Salt Lake City
- February 20, 1987 "David Hartman quits ABC's ""Good Morning America,"" after 11 years"
- February 20, 1987 "Unabomber: In Salt Lake City, in the USA, a bomb explodes in a computer store."
- February 20, 1988 500 die in heavy rains in Rio de Janeiro Brazil
- February 20, 1988 "Brian Boitano wins Olympics gold medal in figure skating at Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta"
- February 20, 1988 Number one hit on UK music charts - Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky
- February 20, 1988 Peter Kalikow purchases New York Post from Rupert Murdoch for $37.6 million
- February 20, 1989 Total eclipse of the Moon
- February 20, 1991 "A gigantic statue of Albania's long-time dictator, Enver Hoxha, is brought down in the Albanian capital, Tirana, by mobs of angry protesters."
- February 20, 1992 Orthodox patriarch Shenouda III visits Netherlands
- February 20, 1992 Ross Perot says he'll run for President on Larry King Show
- February 20, 1994 3 Afghans take 70 Pakistani children hostage
- February 20, 1994 Pope John Paul II demands juristic discrimination of homosexuals
- February 20, 1998 "American figure skater Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest gold-medalist at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan."
- February 20, 1998 Tara Lipinski wins Olympics figure skating gold medal
- February 20, 1998 "UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan lands in Baghdad, for peace negotiations"
- February 20, 1999 "Fifteen-year-old U.S. figure skater Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest gold medal winner in Winter Olympics history, as she wins the ladies figure skating category at Nagano, Japan."
- February 20, 2002 "In Reqa Al-Gharbiya, Egypt, a fire on a train injures over 65 and kills at least 370."
- February 20, 2005 "Spain becomes the first country to vote in a referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin, but on a low turnout."
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