February 20Birthdays & History

On this day: February 20 in history

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

1. 1339The Milanese army and the St. George's (San Giorgio) Mercenaries of Lodrisio Visconti clash in the Battle of Parabiago; Visconti is defeated.Europe
2. 1472Orkney and Shetland are pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Margaret of Denmark.Europe
3. 1521Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León sets out from San Juan, Puerto Rico, for Florida with about 200 prospective colonists.EuropeLatin AmericaNorth America
4. 1547Edward VI is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.Europe
5. 1553Yohannan Sulaqa professes his Catholic belief and is ordained as bishop shortly after; this marks the beginning of the Chaldean Catholic Church.Middle East
6. 1685René-Robert Cavelier establishes Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas.EuropeNorth America
7. 1792The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by United States President George Washington.North America
8. 1798Louis-Alexandre Berthier removes Pope Pius VI from power.Europe
9. 1813Manuel Belgrano defeats the royalist army of Pío de Tristán during the Battle of Salta.Latin America
10. 1816Gioachino Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.Latin AmericaEurope
11. 1824William Buckland formally announces the name Megalosaurus, the first scientifically validly named non-avian dinosaur species.Europe
12. 1835The 1835 Concepción earthquake destroys Concepción, Chile.Latin America
13. 1846Polish insurgents lead an uprising in Kraków to incite a fight for national independence.Europe
14. 1864American Civil War: Battle of Olustee: The largest battle fought in Florida during the war.North America
15. 1865End of the Uruguayan War, with a peace agreement between President Tomás Villalba and rebel leader Venancio Flores, setting the scene for the destructive War of the Triple Alliance.Latin America
16. 1872The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City.North America
17. 1877Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake receives its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.Europe
18. 189420 February bombings by Désiré Pauwels during the Ère des attentats (1892-1894).Europe
19. 1901The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time.North America
20. 1905The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of Massachusetts's mandatory smallpox vaccination program in Jacobson v. Massachusetts.North America
21. 1909Publication of the Futurist Manifesto in the French journal Le Figaro.Europe
22. 1913King O'Malley drives in the first survey peg to mark commencement of work on the construction of Canberra.Oceania
23. 1920An earthquake kills between 114 and 130 in Georgia and heavily damages the town of Gori.Europe
24. 1931The U.S. Congress approves the construction of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California.North America
25. 1931An anarchist uprising in Encarnación, Paraguay briefly transforms the city into a revolutionary commune.Latin America
26. 1933Adolf Hitler secretly meets with German industrialists to arrange for financing of the Nazi Party's upcoming election campaign.Europe
27. 1933The U.S. Congress approves the Blaine Act to repeal federal Prohibition in the United States, sending the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution to state ratifying conventions for approval.North America
28. 1935Caroline Mikkelsen becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.World
29. 1939Madison Square Garden Nazi rally: The largest ever pro-Nazi rally in United States history is convened in Madison Square Garden, New York City, with 20,000 members and sympathizers of the German American Bund present.North AmericaEurope
30. 1942World War II: Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace.North America
31. 1943World War II: American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.North America
32. 1943The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms.North America
33. 1944World War II: The "Big Week" begins with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.North AmericaEurope
34. 1944World War II: The United States takes Eniwetok Atoll.North America
35. 1952Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.AfricaNorth America
36. 1956The United States Merchant Marine Academy becomes a permanent Service Academy.North America
37. 1959The Avro Arrow program to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate.North America
38. 1962Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes.North America
39. 1965Ranger 8 crashes into the Moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.World
40. 1968The China Academy of Space Technology, China's main arm for the research, development, and creation of space satellites, is established in Beijing.Asia
41. 1971The United States Emergency Broadcast System is accidentally activated in an erroneous national alert.North America
42. 1979An earthquake cracks open the Sinila volcanic crater on the Dieng Plateau, releasing poisonous H2S gas and killing 149 villagers in the Indonesian province of Central Java.Asia
43. 1986The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft. Remaining in orbit for 15 years, it is occupied for ten of those years.Europe
44. 1988The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast votes to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, triggering the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.Europe
45. 1991In the Albanian capital Tirana, a gigantic statue of Albania's long-time leader, Enver Hoxha, is brought down by mobs of angry protesters.Europe
46. 1998American figure skater Tara Lipinski, at the age of 15, becomes the youngest Olympic figure skating gold-medalist at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.North AmericaAsia
47. 2002A cooking gas cylinder explodes on board an Egyptian National Railways train in El Ayyat, causing a fire and killing over 370 people.Middle East
48. 2003During a Great White concert in West Warwick, Rhode Island, a pyrotechnics display sets the Station nightclub ablaze, killing 100 and injuring over 200 others.North America
49. 2005Spain becomes the first country to vote in a referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin, but on a low turnout.Europe
50. 2009Two Tamil Tigers aircraft packed with C4 explosives en route to the national airforce headquarters are shot down by the Sri Lankan military before reaching their target, in a kamikaze style attack.Asia
51. 2010In Madeira Island, Portugal, heavy rain causes floods and mudslides, resulting in at least 43 deaths, in the worst disaster in the history of the archipelago.Europe
52. 2014Dozens of Euromaidan anti-government protesters die in Ukraine's capital Kyiv, many reportedly killed by snipers.Europe
53. 2015Two trains collide in the Swiss town of Rafz resulting in as many as 49 people injured and Swiss Federal Railways cancelling some services.Europe
54. 2016Six people are killed and two injured in multiple shooting incidents in Kalamazoo County, Michigan.North America

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