July 20

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Events

• 514 - Pope Hormisdas assumes the papacy of the Roman Catholic Church.
• 1304 - Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle - King Edward I of England takes the last rebel stronghold of the war.
• 1402 - Ottoman-Timurid Wars: Battle of Ankara - Timur, ruler of Timurid Empire, defeated forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I.
• 1656 - Swedish forces under the command of King Charles X Gustav defeats the forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the Battle of Warsaw.
• 1712 - The Riot Act takes effect in Great Britain.
• 1738 - North America: French explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan.
• 1810 - Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada declare independence from Spain.
• 1833 - An anti-Mormon mob in Independence, Missouri, destroys the printing press for the Book of Commandments.*
• 1861 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America begins sitting in Richmond, Virginia.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1871 - British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.
• 1872 - The US Patent Office awards the first patent for wireless telegraphy to Mahlon Loomis.
• 1877 - Rioting in Baltimore, Maryland by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers is put down by the state militia, resulting in nine deaths.
• 1881 - Indian Wars:Sioux Chief Sitting Bull leads the last of his fugitive people in surrender to US troops at Fort Buford, North Dakota
• 1885 - The Football Association legalises professionalism in football under pressure from the British Football Association.
• 1894 - The troops sent by Grover Cleveland to Chicago to end the Pullman Strike are recalled.
• 1903 - Ford Motor Company shipped its first car.
• 1907 - A train wreck on the Pere Marquette Railroad near Salem, Michigan kills thirty and injures seventy more.
• 1916 - World War I: In Armenia, Russian troops capture Gumiskhanek.
• 1916 - American cricketer, John Barton King plays his last match for the Philadelphian cricket team
• 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.
• 1918 - World War I: German troops cross the Marne.
• 1921 - Air mail service begins between New York City and San Francisco.
• 1921 - Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson became the first woman to preside over the US House of Representatives.
• 1922 - The League of Nations awards mandates of Togoland to France and Tanganyika to the United Kingdom.
• 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.
• 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, and subject themselves to the same laws and taxes as other Hungarians.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1932 - Crowds in the capitals of Bolivia and Paraguay demand their governments declare war on the other after fighting on their border.
• 1933 - Vice-Chancellor of Germany Franz von Papen and Vatican Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli sign a concordat on behalf of their respective nations.
• 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 - 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.
• 1935 - Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashes into a Swiss mountain, killing thirteen.
• 1935 - Riots between Muslims and Sikhs over a mosque in Lahore, India leave eleven dead.
• 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.
• 1937 - Two black men accused of stabbing a policeman are taken by a mob from the county jail in Tallahassee, Florida and lynched.
• 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.
• 1940 - Denmark leaves the League of Nations.
• 1940 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Hatch Act of 1939, limiting political activity by Federal government employees.
• 1941 - Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief.
• 1942 - World War II: Red Army troops take bridgeheads over the Don River near Voronezh.
• 1942 - World War II: The first unit of the Women's Army Corps begins training in Des Moines, Iowa.
• 1943 - World War II: American and Canadian troops conquer Enna on Sicily.
• 1944 - World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt (known as the July 20 Plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.
• 1944 - World War II: American troops land on Guam near Port Apra.
• 1944 - Fifty are hurt in rioting in front of the presidential palace in Mexico City.
• 1945 - The US Congress approves the Bretton Woods Agreement.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1947 - The Viceroy of India says the people of the Northwest Frontier Province overwhelmingly voted the previous day to join Pakistan rather than India.
• 1948 - US President Harry S. Truman issues a peacetime military draft in the US amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union.
• 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.
• 1949 - Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their nineteen-month war.
• 1950 - Cold War: In Philadelphia, Harry Gold pleads guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs.
• 1951 - King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem.
• 1953 - The United Nations Economic and Social Council votes to make UNICEF a permanent agency.
• 1954 - Germany: Otto John, head of West Germany's secret service, defects to East Germany.
• 1954 - At Geneva, Switzerland, an armistice is signed that ends fighting in Vietnam and divides the country along the 17th parallel.
• 1958 - Twenty-six are dead in an explosion at a military base near Kokin Breg, Yugoslavia.
• 1959 - The Organization for European Economic Cooperation admits Spain.
• 1960 - Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government.
• 1960 - The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time.
• 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.
• 1960 - The head of the Physics Department at the Israel Institute of Technology, Kurt Sitte, is arrested for espionage.
• 1961 - French military forces break the Tunisian siege of Bizerte.
• 1962 - Earthquakes in Colombia kill 40.
• 1964 - Vietnam War: Viet Cong forces attack the capital of Dinh Tuong Province, Cai Be, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of which are children).
• 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.
• 1965 - Turkish prime minister Suat Hayri Urguplu returns from a visit to Moscow and announces the Soviet Union will provide aid to his country.
• 1969 - Apollo Program: Apollo 11successfully lands the first man on the Moon.
• 1969 - Cease fire announced between Honduras and El Salvador, 6 days after the beginning of the "Football War"
• 1971 - The Soviet Union says it will support the People's Republic of China's admission to the United Nations
• 1973 - The US Senate passes the War Powers Act.
• 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 .
• 1973 - Seventy-three government officials and military officers are charged with conspiracy to overthrow the Greek government.
• 1973 - Palestianian terrorists hijack a Japan Airlines jet en route from Amsterdam to Japan and force it down in Dubai.
• 1973 - First coast-to-coast black-owned and operated radio network: The National Black Network (NBN) begins operations.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1976 - The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
• 1976 - Vietnam War: The US military completes its troop withdrawal from Thailand.
• 1977 - Johnstown is hit by a flash flood that kills eighty and causes $350 million in damage.
• 1977 - The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments.
• 1980 - The United Nations Security Council votes 14-0 that member states should not recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
• 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.
• 1983 - The Israeli cabinet votes to withdraw troops from Beirut but to remain in southern Lebanon.
• 1984 - Officials of the Miss America pageant ask Vanessa Lynn Williams to quit after Penthouse published nude photos of her.
• 1985 - The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles.
• 1986 - In South Africa, police fire tear gas into a church service for families of those held under the government's emergency decrees.
• 1986 - In Cambridge, Gerald Amirault of the Fells Acres Day Care Center is convicted of molesting nine children.
• 1987 - UN Security Council Resolution 598, condemning the Iran-Iraq War and demanding cease-fire, is unanimously adopted.
• 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.
• 1989 - Burma's ruling junta puts opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
• 1990 - Haiti asks the US to send observers to monitor its upcoming elections.
• 1990 - A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb explodes at the International Stock Exchange in London.
• 1992 - Václav Havel resigns as president of Czechoslovakia.
• 1992 - A TU-154 cargo plane crashes in the suburbs of Tbilisi, Georgia, killing forty.
• 1994 - Israel's Shimon Peres visits Jordan, the highest ranking Israeli official to do so
• 1994 - Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's Fragment Q1 hits Jupiter.
• 1995 - The Regents of the University of California vote to end all affirmative action in the UC system by 1997.
• 1996 - In Spain, an ETA bomb at an airport kills 35
• 1998 - Two hundred aid workers from CARE International, Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups leave Afghanistan on orders of the Taliban.
• 1999 - Falun Gong is officially banned and defined as an "evil cult" (xiejiao) by the Chinese government, and a large-scale persecution of its practitioners is launched.
• 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.
• 2000 - In Zimbabwe, Parliament opens its new session and seats opposition members for the first time in a decade.
• 2000 - Terrorist Carlos the Jackal sues France in the European Court of Human Rights for allegedly torturing him.
• 2001 - The London Stock Exchange goes public.
• 2001 - Italy: The 27th Annual G8 summit opens in Genoa. An Italian protester in Genoa, Carlo Giuliani, is shot by police.
• 2002 - South America: A fire in a discotheque in Lima, Peru kills over twenty-five.
• 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".
• 2003 - France: Sixteen people are injured after two bombs explode outside a tax office in Nice.
• 2005 - Canada becomes the fourth country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage, after the bill C-38 receives its Royal Assent.

Births

• 356 BC - Alexander the Great, Greek king and military leader (d. 323 BC)
• 810 - Imam Bukhari, Muslim scholar and compiler of Hadith (d. 870)
• 1304 - Francesco Petrarch, Italian poet (d. 1374)
• 1537 - Arnaud d'Ossat, French diplomat and writer (d. 1604)
• 1620 - Nikolaes Heinsius, Dutch scholar (d. 1681)
• 1659 - Hyacinthe Rigaud, French painter (d. 1743)
• 1661 - Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, French founder of the colony of Louisiana (d. 1706)
• 1673 - John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair, Scottish soldier and diplomat (d. 1747)
• 1754 - Destutt de Tracy, French philosopher (d. 1836)
• 1757 - Garsevan Chavchavadze, Georgian diplomat and politician (d. 1811)
• 1774 - Auguste Marmont, French marshal (d. 1852)
• 1797 - Sir Paweł Edmund Strzelecki, Polish explorer and geologist (d. 1873)
• 1822 - Gregor Mendel, father of modern genetics (d. 1884)
• 1838 - Augustin Daly, American playwright (d. 1899)
• 1838 - George Otto Trevelyan, British statesman and biographer (d. 1928)
• 1847 - Max Liebermann, German artist (d. 1935)
• 1849 - Robert Anderson Van Wyck, Mayor of New York City (d. 1918)
• 1858 - Ivan Vucetic, Croatian anthropologist (d. 1925)
• 1864 - Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate (d. 1931)
• 1868 - Miron Cristea, 1st Patriarch of All Romania (d. 1939)
• 1873 - Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazilian aviator (d. 1932)
• 1876 - Otto Blumenthal, German mathematician (d. 1944)
• 1889 - John Reith, British broadcast executive (d. 1971)
• 1890 - Theda Bara, American actress (d. 1955)
• 1890 - King George II of Greece (d. 1947)
• 1893 - George Llewelyn-Davies, one of the 'Lost Boys' for the Peter Pan book (d. 1915)
• 1895 - László Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian painter, photographer, and sculptor (d. 1946)
• 1897 - Tadeus Reichstein, Polish-born chemist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate (d. 1996)
• 1901 - Heinie Manush, American baseball player (d. 1971)
• 1902 - Jimmy Kennedy, Irish composer (d. 1984)
• 1909 - Jean Focas, Greco-French astronomer (d. 1969)
• 1910 - Vilém Tauský, Czech conductor and composer (d. 2004)
• 1912 - Tom McDermott, American actor (d. 1996)
• 1918 - Cindy Walker, American singer (d. 2006)
• 1919 - Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountain climber
• 1920 - Dick Lucas, American animator (d. 1997)
• 1920 - Elliot Richardson, American politician (d. 1999)
• 1922 - Alan Stephenson Boyd, American politician
• 1923 - Stanisław Albinowski, Polish economist and journalist (d. 2005)
• 1924 - Thomas Berger, American novelist
• 1924 - Mort Garson, Canadian composer
• 1925 - Jacques Delors, French President of the European Commission
• 1925 - Frantz Fanon, West Indian psychiatrist and writer (d. 1961)
• 1926 - Lola Albright, American actress
• 1926 - Patricia Cutts, English actress (d. 1974)
• 1929 - Mike Ilitch, American businessman, sports executive, and philanthropist
• 1929 - Rajendra Kumar, Indian actor (d. 1999)
• 1930 - Chuck Daly, American basketball coach
• 1930 - Sally Ann Howes, English-born singer and actress
• 1932 - Nam June Paik, Korean-born artist (d. 2006)
• 1932 - Otto Schily, German politician
• 1933 - Cormac McCarthy, American author
• 1933 - Rex Williams, English snooker player
• 1933 - Buddy Knox, American singer and songwriter (d. 1999)
• 1934 - Uwe Johnson, German writer
• 1934 - Aliki Vougiouklaki, Greek actress (d. 1996)
• 1936 - Barbara Mikulski, U.S. Senator from Maryland
• 1937 - Ken Ogata, Japanese actor
• 1938 - Roger Hunt, English footballer
• 1938 - Dame Diana Rigg, English actress
• 1938 - Natalie Wood, American actress (d. 1981)
• 1939 - Judy Chicago, American artist
• 1940 - Tony Oliva, Cuban baseball player
• 1941 - Kurt Raab, German actor (d. 1988)
• 1942 - Ron Bowden, Australian politician
• 1942 - Pete Hamilton, American race car driver
• 1943 - Wendy Richard, English actress
• 1945 - Kim Carnes, American singer and songwriter
• 1945 - Larry Craig, American politician (U.S Senator from Idaho)
• 1945 - John Lodge, English musician (The Moody Blues)
• 1945 - Bo Rein, American football coach (d. 1980)
• 1945 - Johnny Loughrey, Irish singer (d. 2005)
• 1946 - Randal Kleiser, American film director
• 1947 - Gerd Binnig, German-born physicist, Nobel laureate
• 1947 - Carlos Santana, Mexican-born American guitarist
• 1948 - Niki Haris, American dancer
• 1948 - Muse Watson, American actor
• 1950 - Tantoo Cardinal, Canadian actress
• 1950 - Naseeruddin Shah, Indian actor
• 1951 - Jeff Rawle, English actor
• 1952 - Keiko Matsuzaka, Japanese actress
• 1953 - Marcia Hines, American-born Australian singer
• 1953 - Thomas Friedman, American journalist
• 1954 - Moira Harris, American actress