Today In History - August 20

2 The planets Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction: Star of Bethlehem
573 Gregory of Tours is selected as bishop of Tours
917 Battle at Anchialus
1191 Crusader King Richard I kills 3,000 Muslim prisoners
1534 Turkish Admiral Chaireddin "Barbarossa" occupies Tunis
1597 The first Dutch East India Company ships returned from Far East
1619 The first Black slaves were brought by the Dutch to the colony of Jamestown, Virginia
1641 Britain and Scotland sign the Treaty of Pacification
1648 Battle of Lens
1741 Alaska is discovered by Danish explorer Vitus Bering
1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie reaches Blair Castle, Scotland
1781 General George Washington begins to move his troops south to fight Cornwallis
1794 General Wayne defeated the Indians at Fallen Timbers, Ohio
1795 Joseph Haydn returns to Vienna from England
1852 Steamer "Atlantic" collided with fishing boat and sinks with 250 aboard
1856 Wilberforce University forms in Ohio
1864 The last day of battle at Deep Bottom Run Virginia: about 3900 casualties
1865 President Johnson proclaims an end to "insurrection" in Texas
1866 President Andrew Johnson formally declares that the Civil War is over
1882 Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" opens in Moscow
1893 Shechita (ritual slaughtering) is prohibited in Switzerland
1896 The dial telephone is patented
1908 The Congo Free State becomes Belgian Congo
1910 U.S. supported opposition brings down Madriz in Nicaragua
1912 The Plant Quarantine Act goes into effect
1914 Battle at Gumbinnen
1914 Battle at Morhange
1914 Battle of Bounderies
1914 Bavarian troops kill 50 in Nomeny, France
1914 The German army captured Brussels as the Belgian army retreated to Antwerp
1915 Italy declares war on Turkey
1915 The White Sox obtain Joe Jackson from Cleveland for Robert Roth, Larry Chappell, Ed Klepfer, and $31,500
1918 Britain starts its offensive on Western front during WW I
1920 The first U.S. commercial radio station began daily broadcasting: Detroit, MI
1920 Israel publishes it's first medical journal "Ha-Refuah"
1922 The first world championship athletics for women, held in Paris
1923 The London harbor strike ends
1926 Uprising against Reza Shah Pahlawi in Persia
1929 The first airship flight around the Earth flying eastward is completed
1935 Military coup by General Pons and president Ibarra in Ecuador
1938 Lou Gehrig hits his record 23rd, and last, grand slam home run
1939 The first black bowling league is formed: National Bowling Association
1940 The first Polish air squadrons fight along with the Brits in the Battle of Britain
1940 British Prime Minister Churchill says of the Royal Air Force: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"
1941 The Police raid the 11th district of Paris and take 4,000+ Jewish males
1942 Dim-out regulations are implemented in San Francisco
1944 "Anna Lucasta" opens on Broadway
1944 General de Gaulle returns to France
1944 The Russian offensive at Jassy and Kisjinev
1944 The U.S. and British forces destroy the German 7th Army at Falaise-Argentan Gap
1948 The U.S. expels the Soviet Consul General in New York
1952 Stalin meets with Chou Enlai
1953 Russia publicly acknowledges its hydrogen bomb test detonation
1955 The first airplane to exceed 1800 mph flies in California
1955 Hundreds of people are killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria
1956 Republicans convene at the Cow Palace
1959 Belgium shortens conscription to 12 months
1960 The U.S.S.R. recovers 2 dogs: the first living organisms to return from space alive
1961 East Germany begins erecting 5' high wall along the border with the west to replace the barbed wire
1962 U.S.S.R. performs nuclear tests at Novaya Zemlya, U.S.S.R.
1964 President Lyndon Johnson signs an anti-poverty measure totaling nearly $1 billion
1964 President Johnson signs the Economic Opportunity Act
1965 Rolling Stones release "Satisfaction"
1966 The Beatles are pelted with rotten fruit during their Memphis concert
1968 650,000 Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia
1970 Hurricane Dorothy kills 42 people in Martinique
1971 The FBI begins covert investigations of journalist Daniel Schorr
1972 The U.S.S.R. performs an underground nuclear test
1974 Nelson Rockefeller becomes the Vice President
1974 President Gerald Ford assumes office after Richard Nixon's resignation
1975 Viking 1 launched to orbit around Mars
1978 Gunmen open fire on an Israeli El Al Airline bus in London
1978 Mark Vinchesi of Amherst Mass keeps a Frisbee aloft for a record 15.2 seconds
1979 India premier Charan Singh resigns
1979 Singer Vikki Carr and Michael Nilsson wed
1980 Mt. Everest is solo-climbed by Italian Reinhold Messner: first to make such an ascent
1980 U.N. Security Council condemns (14-0, but the U.S. abstains) Israeli declaration that all of Jerusalem is its capital
1982 The U.S. Marines land in Beirut, Lebanon
1985 Libya removes thousands of Tunisian and Egyptian gas workers
1986 Mail carrier Patrick Sherrill in Edmond, OK shot and killed 14 fellow workers
1988 A 6.5 earthquake strikes India and Nepal: thousands of people are killed
1990 George Steinbrenner steps down as the New York Yankee owner
1990 Iraq moves Western hostages to military installations as human shields
1991 Dolphin Dan Marino surpasses Joe Montana as the highest paid NFL player: 5-year extension for $25 million
1992 Rocker 'Sting' weds Trudie Styler
1993 Broadcaster Howard Stern is fired from WLUP-AM, Chicago
1993 Mother Teresa is hospitalized with malaria
1994 Archbishop Quarracino wants all homosexuals to leave Argentina
1994 A ferry boat sinks at Chandpur, Bangladesh and 300-350 people are killed
1997 Shelly Moore

Today In History - August 20

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