August 20Birthdays & History

On this day: August 20 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 14Agrippa Postumus, maternal grandson of the late Roman emperor Augustus, is executed by his guards while in exile.Europe
2. 636Battle of the Yarmuk: Marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia, Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid defeat the Byzantine Empire and take control of the Levant.Middle EastEurope
3. 917Battle of Acheloos: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria decisively defeats a Byzantine army.Europe
4. 1057An army under Isaac I Komnenos defeat forces loyal to rival emperor Michael VI Bringas in the battle of Hades.Europe
5. 1083The first King of Hungary, Stephen I, and his son, Prince Emeric, are canonized, a date now celebrated as a National Day in Hungary.Europe
6. 1119King Henry I of England defeats king Louis VI of France in the battle of Brémule.Europe
7. 1191Believing Saladin had reneged on ransom promises, Richard I of England initiates the massacre at Ayyadieh, beheading 2,700 captive Muslim soldiers and another 300 women and children seized at the Fall of Acre.Europe
8. 1308At the conclusion of the interrogation of the leaders of the Knights Templar, the three papal investigators, Cardinals Bérenger Frédol, Etienne de Suisy and Landolfo Brancacci, write the "Chinon Parchment", in which they affirm that the accused Templars had confessed, done penance, and were absolved of heresy.Europe
9. 1467The Second Battle of Olmedo takes places as part of a succession conflict between Henry IV of Castile and his half-brother Alfonso, Prince of Asturias.Europe
10. 1519On the third day of battle, philosopher and general Wang Yangming defeats Zhu Chenhao, ending the Prince of Ning rebellion against the reign of the Ming dynasty's Zhengde Emperor.Asia
11. 1648The Battle of Lens is the last major military confrontation of the Thirty Years' War, contributing to the signing of the Peace of Westphalia in October that year.Europe
12. 1672Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis are lynched by a mob in The Hague.Europe
13. 1707The first Siege of Pensacola comes to an end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.EuropeNorth America
14. 1710War of the Spanish Succession: A multinational army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg defeats the Spanish-Bourbon army commanded by Alexandre Maître, Marquis de Bay in the Battle of Saragossa.Europe
15. 1775The Spanish establish the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in the town that became Tucson, Arizona.EuropeNorth America
16. 1794Northwest Indian War: United States troops force the United Indian Nations, a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Lenape, Wyandot, Miami, Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi warriors, into a disorganized retreat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.North AmericaAsia
17. 1852Steamboat Atlantic sinks on Lake Erie after a collision, with the loss of at least 150 lives.North America
18. 1858Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.Europe
19. 1864Bakumatsu: Kinmon incident: The Chōshū Domain attempts to expel the Satsuma and Aizu Domains from Japan's imperial court.Asia
20. 1866President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.North America
21. 1882Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.Europe
22. 1905Sun Yat-sen, Song Jiaoren, and others establish the Tongmenghui, a Republican, anti-Qing revolutionary organisation, in Tokyo, Japan.AsiaAsia
23. 1910Extreme fire weather in the Inland Northwest of the United States causes many small wildfires to coalesce into the Great Fire of 1910, burning approximately 3 million acres (12,000 km2) and killing 87 people.North America
24. 1914World War I: Brussels is captured during the German invasion of Belgium.Europe
25. 1920The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit.North America
26. 1920The National Football League is organized as the American Professional Football Conference in Canton, Ohio.North America
27. 1926Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) is established.Asia
28. 1940World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".Europe
29. 1940In Mexico City, exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day.Latin AmericaEurope
30. 1940World War II: The Eighth Route Army launches the Hundred Regiments Offensive, a successful campaign to disrupt Japanese war infrastructure and logistics in occupied northern China.AsiaAsia
31. 1944World War II: The Battle of Romania begins with a major Soviet Union offensive.Europe
32. 1944World War II: One hundred sixty-eight captured allied airmen, including Phil Lamason, accused by the Gestapo of being "terror fliers", arrive at Buchenwald concentration camp.Europe
33. 1948Soviet Consul General in New York, Jacob M. Lomakin is expelled by the United States, due to the Kasenkina Case.EuropeNorth America
34. 1949Hungary adopts the Hungarian Constitution of 1949 and becomes a People's Republic.Europe
35. 1955Battle of Philippeville: In Algeria, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.AfricaEurope
36. 1960Senegal breaks from the Mali Federation, declaring its independence.Africa
37. 1962The NS Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarks on its maiden voyage.North America
38. 1968Cold War: Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring. East German participation is limited to a few specialists due to memories of the recent war. Only Albania and Romania refuse to participate.Europe
39. 1975Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.EuropeNorth America
40. 1975ČSA Flight 540 crashes on approach to Damascus International Airport in Damascus, Syria, killing 126 people.Middle East
41. 1977Voyager program: NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.North America
42. 1986In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill shoots and kills 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.North America
43. 1988The Troubles: Eight British soldiers are killed and 28 wounded when their bus is hit by an IRA roadside bomb in Ballygawley, County Tyrone.Europe
44. 1988"Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park.North America
45. 1988Iran–Iraq War: A ceasefire is agreed after almost eight years of war.Middle East
46. 1989The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames following a collision. Fifty-one people are killed.Europe
47. 1991Estonia, occupied by and incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, issues a decision on the re-establishment of independence on the basis of legal continuity of its pre-occupation statehood.Europe
48. 1991Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: More than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.Europe
49. 1992In India, Meitei language (officially known as Manipuri language) is included in the scheduled languages' list and made one of the official languages of the Indian Government.Asia
50. 1995The Firozabad rail disaster kills 358 people in Firozabad, India.Asia
51. 1997Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people are killed and 15 kidnapped.Africa
52. 1998The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.North America
53. 1998U.S. embassy bombings: The United States launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.North AmericaAsiaAfrica
54. 2002A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi embassy in Berlin, Germany for five hours before releasing their hostages and surrendering.Middle EastEurope
55. 2006Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician and former MP S. Sivamaharajah is shot dead at his home in Tellippalai.Asia
56. 2007China Airlines Flight 120 catches fire and explodes after landing at Naha Airport in Okinawa, Japan.AsiaAsia
57. 2008Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid, Spain to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. Of the 172 people on board, 146 die immediately, and eight more later die of injuries sustained in the crash.Europe
58. 2011First Air Flight 6560 crashes 1 mile (1.6 km) from the Resolute Bay runway, killing 12 of the 15 aboard.North America
59. 2012A prison riot in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, kills at least 20 people.Latin America
60. 2014Seventy-two people are killed in Japan's Hiroshima Prefecture by a series of landslides caused by a month's worth of rain that fell in one day.Asia
61. 2016Fifty-four people are killed when a suicide bomber detonates himself at a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey.Middle East
62. 2020Joe Biden gives his acceptance speech virtually for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.North America

Source: Wikipedia "August 20" / CC BY-SA 4.0