See what makes July 20 special at Famous Daily.
History, birthdays, holiday, and a quote!
What happened on July 20
- July 20, 0514 Pope Hormisdas assumes.Roman Catholic Church.
- July 20, 1402 "Ottoman-Timurid Wars: Battle of Ankara - Timur, ruler of Timurid Empire, defeated forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I."
- July 20, 1656 Swedish forces under the command of King Charles X Gustav defeats the forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the Battle of Warsaw.
- July 20, 1712 The Riot Act takes effect in Great Britain.
- July 20, 1738 North America: French explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vrendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan.
- July 20, 1773 "Scottish settlers arrive at Pictou, Nova Scotia (Canada)"
- July 20, 1810 "Citizens of Bogot, New Granada declare independence from Spain."
- July 20, 1810 Colombia declared independence from Spain
- July 20, 1861 "1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Peachtree Creek - Near Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate forces led by General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attack Union troops under General William T. Sherman."
- July 20, 1861 "Confederate state's congress began holding sessions in Richmond, Va"
- July 20, 1864 Battle of Peachtree Creek-Atlanta Campaign
- July 20, 1866 "Austro-Prussian War: Battle of Lissa - The Austrian Navy , led by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, defeats the Italian Navy near the island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea."
- July 20, 1868 The first use of tax stamps on cigarettes
- July 20, 1871 "British Columbia is admitted to the Dominion of Canada. One of the conditions of entry is that the Dominion Government should, within two years from the date of union, commence the construction of a railway from the Pacific towards the Rocky Mountains and from a point east of the Rocky Mountains towards the Pacific to connect the seaboard of British Columbia with the railway system of Canada. Sir Sandford Fleming was appointed Engineer-in-Chief of this railway which was to be completed by 1881."
- July 20, 1871 British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.
- July 20, 1872 Mahlon Loomis receives patent for wireless ... the radio is born
- July 20, 1872 The US Patent Office awards the first patent for wireless telegraphy to Mahlon Loomis.
- July 20, 1877 "Rioting in Baltimore, Maryland by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers is put down by the state militia, resulting in nine deaths."
- July 20, 1878 The first telephone introduced in Hawaii
- July 20, 1881 "Indian Wars:Sioux Chief Sitting Bull leads the last of his fugitive people in surrender to US troops at Fort Buford, North Dakota"
- July 20, 1881 "Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull, surrenders to federal troops"
- July 20, 1885 The Football Association legalises professionalism in football under pressure from the British Football Association.
- July 20, 1890 "Snow & hail in Calais, ME"
- July 20, 1894 "2000 fed troops recalled from Chicago, having ended Pullman strike"
- July 20, 1894 The troops sent by Grover Cleveland to Chicago to end the Pullman Strike are recalled.
- July 20, 1903 Ford Motor Company shipped its first car.
- July 20, 1903 Giuseppe Sarto elected Pope Pius X
- July 20, 1907 "A train wreck on the Pere Marquette Railroad near Salem, Michigan kills thirty and injures seventy more."
- July 20, 1916 "American cricketer, John Barton King plays his last match for the Philadelphian cricket team"
- July 20, 1916 "World War I: In Armenia, Russian troops capture Gumiskhanek."
- July 20, 1917 "World War I: The Corfu Declaration, which leads to the creation of the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, is signed by the Yugoslav Committee and Kingdom of Serbia."
- July 20, 1917 WW I draft lottery held; #258 is first drawn
- July 20, 1921 Air mail service begins between New York City and San Francisco.
- July 20, 1921 Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson became the first woman to preside over the US House of Representatives.
- July 20, 1922 Togo made a mandate of the League of Nations
- July 20, 1924 "Teheran, Persia comes under martial law after the American vice consul, Robert Imbrie, is killed by a religious mob enraged by rumors he had poisoned a fountain and killed several people."
- July 20, 1926 A convention of the Methodist Church votes to allow women to become priests.
- July 20, 1928 "The government of Hungary issues a decree ordering Gypsies to end their nomadic ways, settle permanently in one place, and subject themselves to the same laws and taxes as other Hungarians."
- July 20, 1929 Soviet troops attempt to cross the Amur River into Manchuria near Blagoveschensk as tensions mount between the Soviet Union and the Republic of China.
- July 20, 1930 "106? F (41? C), Washington, DC (district record)"
- July 20, 1932 Crowds in the capitals of Bolivia and Paraguay demand their governments declare war on the other after fighting on their border.
- July 20, 1932 "In Washington, D.C., police fire tear gas on World War I veterans part of the Bonus Expeditionary Force who attempt to march to the White House."
- July 20, 1933 Germany: Two-hundred Jewish merchants are arrested in Nuremberg and paraded through the streets.
- July 20, 1933 "In London, 500,000 march against anti-Semitism."
- July 20, 1933 Vice-Chancellor of Germany Franz von Papen and Vatican Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli sign a concordat on behalf of their respective nations.
- July 20, 1934 "118? F (48? C), Keokuk, Iowa (state record)"
- July 20, 1934 "Labor unrest in the US, as police in Minneapolis fire upon striking truck drivers, wounding fifty; Seattle police led by the mayor police fire tear gas on and club 2,000 striking longshoremen, and the governor of Oregon calls out the National Guard to break a strike on the Portland docks."
- July 20, 1935 "Riots between Muslims and Sikhs over a mosque in Lahore, India leave eleven dead."
- July 20, 1935 "Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashes into a Swiss mountain, killing thirteen."
- July 20, 1936 "The Montreux Convention is signed in Switzerland, authorizing Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and Bosphorus but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime."
- July 20, 1937 "Guglielmo Marconi dies Mr. Marconi played a major role in the development of early radio. Born in Italy, he studied engineering. Marconi began experimenting with crude radio devices at the age of 20, and he later moved to England, where he won government support for his work."
- July 20, 1937 "Two black men accused of stabbing a policeman are taken by a mob from the county jail in Tallahassee, Florida and lynched."
- July 20, 1938 Finland awarded 1940 Olympic games after Japan withdraws
- July 20, 1938 The Justice Department files suit in New York City against the motion picture industry charging violations of anti-trust law. The case would eventually result in a break-up of the industry in 1948.
- July 20, 1940 Denmark leaves the League of Nations.
- July 20, 1940 Singles record charts first published by Billboard-Tommy Dorsey #1
- July 20, 1941 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief.
- July 20, 1942 Legion of Merit Medal authorized by congress
- July 20, 1942 Women's Army Auxiliary Corps began basic training at Fort Des Moines
- July 20, 1944 Abortive attempt on Hitler's life by a group of Nazi officers.
- July 20, 1944 Fifty are hurt in rioting in front of the presidential palace in Mexico City.
- July 20, 1944 Pres FDR nominated for an unprecedented 4th term at Dem convention
- July 20, 1944 US invades Japanese-occupied Guam in WW II
- July 20, 1944 Von Stauffenberg fails on an attempt on Hitler's life
- July 20, 1945 The US Congress approves the Bretton Woods Agreement.
- July 20, 1946 World War II: The US Congress's Pearl Harbor Committee says Franklin D. Roosevelt was completely blameless for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and calls for a unified command structure in the armed forces.
- July 20, 1947 Police in Burma arrest former Prime Minister U Saw and 19 others on charges of assassinating Prime Minister U Aung San and seven members of his cabinet.
- July 20, 1947 The Viceroy of India says the people of the Northwest Frontier Province overwhelmingly voted the previous day to join Pakistan rather than India.
- July 20, 1948 "In New York City, twelve leaders of the Communist Party USA are indicted under the Smith Act including William Z. Foster and Gus Hall."
- July 20, 1949 Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their nineteen-month war.
- July 20, 1950 """Arthur Murray Party"" premiers on ABC TV (later DuMont, CBS, NBC)"
- July 20, 1950 "Cold War: In Philadelphia, Harry Gold pleads guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs."
- July 20, 1951 Abdullah Ibn Hussein Jordan's King assassinated in Jerusalem
- July 20, 1951 King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem.
- July 20, 1953 The United Nations Economic and Social Council votes to make UNICEF a permanent agency.
- July 20, 1954 "At Geneva, Switzerland, an armistice is signed that ends fighting in Vietnam and divides the country along the 17th parallel."
- July 20, 1954 "Germany: Otto John, head of West Germany's secret service, defects to East Germany."
- July 20, 1954 Tennis Champ Maureen Connolly's right leg is crushed in an accident
- July 20, 1954 "Two-and-a-half months after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in northern Vietnam, France agreed to recognize Vietnamese sovereignty at the Geneva Conference"
- July 20, 1956 France recognizes Tunisia's independence
- July 20, 1956 "USS Thetis Bay (CVHA 1), first helicopter assault carrier, was commissioned at San Francisco, Formerly CVE 90, Thetis Bay was converted to operate helicopters and to accommodate 1,000 Marine combat troops to be flown ashore in the vertical development tactics of amphibious assault."
- July 20, 1957 "Phil Hanna singer (Once Upon a Tune), dies at 46"
- July 20, 1958 "Twenty-six are dead in an explosion at a military base near Kokin Breg, Yugoslavia."
- July 20, 1959 The Organization for European Economic Cooperation admits Spain.
- July 20, 1960 Belgium defends its intervention in the Congo to the United Nations Security Council while the government of the Congo appeals to the Soviet Union to send troops to push back the Belgians. The governments of the US and France and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization warn the Soviets to stay out of the dispute.
- July 20, 1960 "The head of the Physics Department at the Israel Institute of Technology, Kurt Sitte, is arrested for espionage."
- July 20, 1960 "The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time."
- July 20, 1960 USSR recovered 2 dogs; first living organisms to return from space
- July 20, 1961 French military forces break the Tunisian siege of Bizerte.
- July 20, 1961 Number one hit on UK music charts - Everly Brothers - Temptation
- July 20, 1962 Earthquakes in Colombia kill 40.
- July 20, 1964 "The first surfin' record to go #1-Jan & Dean's ""Surf City"""
- July 20, 1965 "46.18 cm (18.18"") of rainfall, Edgarton, Missouri (state 24-hr record)"
- July 20, 1965 "In Hayneville, Alabama, two civil rights protesters, one a priest and the other a seminarian, are shot by a deputy sheriff. The seminarian dies of his wounds."
- July 20, 1965 Turkish prime minister Suat Hayri Urguplu returns from a visit to Moscow and announces the Soviet Union will provide aid to his country.
- July 20, 1967 Race riots in Memphis Tenn
- July 20, 1968 "Iron Butterfly's ""In-a-gadda-da-vida"" becomes the first heavy metal song to hit the charts, it comes in at #117"
- July 20, 1968 Jane Asher breaks her engagement with Paul McCartney on live TV
- July 20, 1969 "At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, nearly 240,000 miles from earth, spoke these words to millions listening at home"
- July 20, 1969 "Cease fire announced between Honduras and El Salvador, 6 days after the beginning of the ""Football War"""
- July 20, 1969 "The first men on Moon, Neil Armstrong & Edwin Aldrin, Apollo 11"
- July 20, 1970 The first baby born on Alcatraz Island
- July 20, 1971 The Soviet Union says it will support the People's Republic of China's admission to the United Nations
- July 20, 1973 First coast-to-coast black-owned and operated radio network: The National Black Network (NBN) begins operations.
- July 20, 1973 Palestianian terrorists hijack a Japan Airlines jet en route from Amsterdam to Japan and force it down in Dubai.
- July 20, 1973 Seventy-three government officials and military officers are charged with conspiracy to overthrow the Greek government.
- July 20, 1973 The US Senate passes the War Powers Act.
- July 20, 1973 "Vietnam War: In testimony by Assistant Secretary of Defense Jerry Friedheim to the US Senate Committee on Armed Services, the US Defense Department admits it lied to US Congress about bombing Cambodia ."
- July 20, 1974 "Allen Jenkins actor (Fugitive from a Chain Gang), dies at 74"
- July 20, 1974 "Turkish occupation of Cyprus: Forces from Turkey invade Cyprus after a ""coup d' etat"", organised by the dictator of Greece, against president Makarios. NATO's Council praises the US and the United Kingdom for attempts to settle the dispute. Syria and Egypt put their militaries on alert."
- July 20, 1975 "India expels three reporters from The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and Newsweek because they refused to sign a pledge to abide by government censorship."
- July 20, 1976 "On the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, the Viking 1 lander, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe"
- July 20, 1976 The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
- July 20, 1976 "US Viking 1 lands on Mars at Chryse Planitia, first Martian landing"
- July 20, 1976 Vietnam War: The US military completes its troop withdrawal from Thailand.
- July 20, 1977 "Flash flood hits Johnstown, Pa, kills 80 & causing $350 mil damage"
- July 20, 1977 The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments.
- July 20, 1979 "44-kg Newfoundland dog pulls 2293-kg load, Bothell, Wash"
- July 20, 1982 Bombs planted by Irish Republican Army explode in 2 London parks
- July 20, 1982 "Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings: The Provisional IRA detonates two bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park in central London, killing eight soldiers, wounding forty-seven people, and leading to the deaths of seven horses."
- July 20, 1983 "Frank Reynolds news anchor (ABC Evening News), dies at 59"
- July 20, 1983 The Israeli cabinet votes to withdraw troops from Beirut but to remain in southern Lebanon.
- July 20, 1984 Officials of the Miss America pageant ask Vanessa Lynn Williams to quit after Penthouse published nude photos of her.
- July 20, 1984 Uwe Hohn of East Germany throws javelin a record 104.8 m
- July 20, 1985 Divers find wreck of Spanish galleon Atocha
- July 20, 1985 The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles.
- July 20, 1986 "Helen Craig actress (Rich Man Poor Man), dies at 74"
- July 20, 1986 "In Cambridge, Gerald Amirault of the Fells Acres Day Care Center is convicted of molesting nine children."
- July 20, 1986 "In South Africa, police fire tear gas into a church service for families of those held under the government's emergency decrees."
- July 20, 1988 Michael Dukakis selected Democratic presidential nominee
- July 20, 1989 "93? F, highest overnight low ever recorded in Phoenix Arizona"
- July 20, 1989 Burma's ruling junta puts opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
- July 20, 1989 "Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's show opens at Washington, D.C.'s Project for the Arts after the Smithsonian Institution's Corcoran Gallery cancels it."
- July 20, 1990 A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb explodes at the International Stock Exchange in London.
- July 20, 1990 Haiti asks the US to send observers to monitor its upcoming elections.
- July 20, 1990 Justice William Brennan resigns from the Supreme Court after 36 years
- July 20, 1991 Kirk Cameron marries Growing Pains co-star Chelsea Noble in upstate NY
- July 20, 1991 Mike Tyson is accused of raping a Miss Black America contestant
- July 20, 1992 "A TU-154 cargo plane crashes in the suburbs of Tbilisi, Georgia, killing forty."
- July 20, 1992 Vclav Havel resigns as president of Czechoslovakia.
- July 20, 1994 Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's Fragment Q1 hits Jupiter.
- July 20, 1994 "Israel's Shimon Peres visits Jordan, the highest ranking Israeli official to do so"
- July 20, 1995 The Regents of the University of California vote to end all affirmative action in the UC system by 1997.
- July 20, 1996 "In Spain, an ETA bomb at an airport kills 35"
- July 20, 1998 "On this day in 1998, Attorneys General from 20 states dropped some of their antitrust charges against Microsoft, narrowing their focus in the antitrust case."
- July 20, 1998 "Two hundred aid workers from CARE International, Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups leave Afghanistan on orders of the Taliban."
- July 20, 1999 "The practise Falun Gong is officially banned and defined as an ""evil cult"" (xiejiao) by the government of the People's Republic of China, and a large-scale crackdown of its practitioners is launched."
- July 20, 2000 "In Zimbabwe, Parliament opens its new session and seats opposition members for the first time in a decade."
- July 20, 2000 Terrorist Carlos the Jackal sues France in the European Court of Human Rights for allegedly torturing him.
- July 20, 2000 "The leaders of Salt Lake City's bid to win the 2002 Winter Olympics are indicted by a federal grand jury for bribery, fraud, and racketeering."
- July 20, 2001 "Italy: The 27th Annual G8 summit opens in Genoa. An Italian protester in Genoa, Carlo Giuliani, is shot by police."
- July 20, 2001 The London Stock Exchange goes public.
- July 20, 2002 "South America: A fire in a discotheque in Lima, Peru kills over twenty-five."
- July 20, 2003 France: Sixteen people are injured after two bombs explode outside a tax office in Nice.
- July 20, 2003 "Richard Sambrook, the Director of BBC News, reveals that David Kelly was the source of claims that Downing Street had ""sexed up"" the ""Dodgy Dossier""."
- July 20, 2008 Jewish Holiday - The 17th of Tammuz - Work permitted
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