On This Day

[IceWizard]

Historical Events on July 20


1801  Elisha Brown Jr presses a 1,235 pound cheese ball at his farm

1808  Napoleon decrees all French Jews adopt family names

French Emperor
Napoléon Bonaparte

1810  Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada (now Colombia), declare independence from Spain

1837  Euston railway station opens in London as the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR), the city's 1st intercity railway station

An early print of Euston station showing the wrought iron roof of 1837.
Note the open carriages

1858  Fee 1st charged to see a baseball game (50 cents) (NY beats Bkln 22-18)

1861  Confederate states' congress began holding sessions in Richmond, Virginia

1862  Guerrilla campaign in Georgia (Porter's & Poindexter's) [->SEP 20]

1864  Battle at Stephenson's Depot, Virginia: 200 killed or injured

1864  Battle of Peachtree Creek-Atlanta Campaign

1868  1st use of tax stamps on cigarettes

1877  Military shoots on stopped railroad workers in Baltimore, kills 9

1878  1st telephone introduced in Hawaii

1881  Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull, surrenders to US federal troops

Lakota Sioux Chief
Sitting Bull

1911  Generals Henry Wilson/Auguste Dubail sign plan for British Expeditionary army in case of war with Germany

1917  WW I draft lottery held; #258 is 1st drawn

1921  Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson becomes the first woman to preside over the floor of US House of Representatives

2nd Woman Elected to Congress and Educator
Alice Mary Robertson

1924  Tehran, 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

1925  Beirut sultan Pasja al-Atrasj calls Druzen for holy war against France

1926  A convention of the Methodist Church votes to allow women to become priests.

1928  The government of Hungary issues a decree ordering Gypsies to end their nomadic ways, settle permanently in one place, subject themselves to the same laws and taxes as other Hungarians

1930  106°F (41°C), Washington, D.C. (district record)

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

1933  Vatican state secretary Pacelli (Pius XII) signs accord with Adolf Hitler

Dictator of Nazi Germany
Adolf Hitler

1933  In London, 500,000 march against anti-Semitism

1933  Germany: Two-hundred Jewish merchants are arrested in Nuremberg and paraded through the streets

1934  118°F (48°C), Keokuk, Iowa (state record)

1940  Nazi collaborator Rost of Tonningen appointed director of Marxist

1943  US Joint Chiefs of Staff question Admiral Chester Nimitz over the landing on Gilbert Island

US Admiral
Chester Nimitz

1944  Death March of 1,200 Jews from Lipcani Moldavia begins

1944  Fieldmarshal von Kluge consults with German commandant at Caen

1944  General Eisenhower visits Montgomery's headquarter in Normandy

34th US President & WWII General
Dwight D. Eisenhower

1944  Liberators of US 8th Air Force attack Gotha Russelsheim/Eisenach

1944  Japanese aircraft carrier Hijo sunk by US air attack

1944  US President FDR nominated for an unprecedented 4th term at Democratic convention

32nd US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt

1944  US invades Japanese-occupied Guam

1944  Violent battles in Verrieres-hill (Normandy)

1944  Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by German army officer Claus Von Stauffenberg

1948  US Communist Party chairman William Forster arrested

1949  Israel's 19 month war of independence ends

1951  King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem

1954  Armistice for Indo-China signed, Vietnam separates into North and South

1960  1st submerged submarine to fire Polaris missile (George Washington)

1968  Jane Asher breaks her engagement with Paul McCartney on live TV

1969  Apollo 11 lunar module carrying Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins lands on the surface of the Moon; Aldrin and Armstrong walk on the moon seven hours later

1973  The US Senate passes the War Powers Act

1976  US Viking 1 lands on Mars at Chryse Planitia, 1st Martian landing

1976  Vietnam War: The US military completes its troop withdrawal from Thailand.

1977  The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments

1979  44-kg Newfoundland dog pulls 2293-kg load, Bothell, Washington

1984  Vanessa Williams is asked to resign as Miss America

1985  Divers find wreck of Spanish galleon Atocha

1989  93°F, highest overnight low ever recorded in Phoenix Arizona

1990  Justice William J. Brennan Jr. resigns from the Supreme Court after 36 years

1991  Mike Tyson is accused of raping a Miss Black America contestant

1994  O.J. Simpson offers $500,000 reward for evidence of ex-wife's klller

1994  Supreme Leader of North-Korea, Kim Il-sung is placed in a public Mausoleum at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun

North Korean founder and dictator
Kim Il-sung

1998  Two hundred aid workers from CARE International, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and other aid groups leave Afghanistan on orders of the Taliban

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

2002  Bartenders doing tricks with fire start a major fire in a night club in Lima, Peru that kills 25 and injures 100

2006  During an appearance on "The Tonight Show", Colin Farrell is confronted by telephone sex worker Dessarae Bradford, who had been stalking the actor

Actor
Colin Farrell

2014  Patrick Sawyer arrives in city of Lagos in Nigeria and collapses; he dies of Ebola five days later

2015  Hacker group the Impact Team annouce they have hacked married dating site Ashley Madison

2017  The last fighting occurs in the Iraqi city of Mosul as the city is liberated from ISIS militants

2018  Australian businessman James Packer announces he has quit 22 directorships due to mental health issues