June 20
June 20 is the 171st day of the year (172nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 194 days remaining.
Events
- 451- The Battle of Chalons, Flavius Aetius' victory over Attila the Hun.
- 1214 - University of Oxford receives its charter.
- 1631 - The sack of Baltimore: the Irish village of Baltimore is attacked by Algerian pirates.
- 1685 - Monmouth Rebellion: The Duke of Monmouth declares himself King of England at Bridgwater.
- 1756 - British garrison imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
- 1782 - The U.S. Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States.
- 1789 - Deputies of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath
- 1791 - The Flight to Varennes began.
- 1819 - The US vessel Savannah arrives at Liverpool, United Kingdom. She is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, most of the journey was made under sail.
- 1837 - Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne.
- 1862 - Barbu Catargiu is assassinated.
- 1863 - West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.
- 1877 - Alexander Graham Bell installs world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
- 1893 - Lizzie Borden is acquitted of murdering her stepmother and father.
- 1919 - 150 die at the Teatro Yaguez fire, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
- 1939 - Benny Goodman's Song School ends its radio series.
- 1948 - Toast of the Town, later The Ed Sullivan Show, debuts.
- 1956 - A Venezuelan Super-Constellation crashed in Atlantic Ocean off Asbury Park, New Jersey killing 74 people
- 1960 - Independence of Mali and Senegal.
- 1963 - The so-called "red telephone" was established between Soviet Union and United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- 1966 - Canada sells 336 million bushels of wheat to Soviet Union.
- 1969 - Jacques Chaban-Delmas becomes Prime Minister of France
- 1977 - Oil begins to flow through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS).
- 1980 - Roberto Duran starts his classic boxing trilogy with Sugar Ray Leonard by defeating him in Canada by a decision in 15 rounds, to gain the WBC world Welterweight championship.
- 1983 - LZW patent filed in USA.
- 1990 - Asteroid Eureka discovered.
- 1991 - German parliament decides to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.
- 2001 - Pervez Musharraf becomes president of Pakistan
- 2001 - In Texas, USA, Andrea Yates drowns her children in a bathtub and admits to the crime. She would be sentenced to life in prison.
- 2003 - LZW patent expires in USA.
- 2003 - Bounce premieres at the Goodman Theatre.
- 2003 - Formation of Wikimedia Foundation announced.
Births
- 1561 - Sigismund, king of Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (d. 1632)
- 1634 - Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy (d. 1675)
- 1756 - Joseph Martin Kraus, composer
- 1763 - Wolfe Tone, Irish patriot
- 1771 - Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, philanthropist, entrepreneur (d. 1820)
- 1797 - Sophie (Frémiet) Rude, French artist (d. 1867)
- 1808 - Samson Raphael Hirsch, rabbi (d. 1888)
- 1819 - Jacques Offenbach, composer (d. 1880)
- 1887 - Kurt Schwitters, painter (Dadaist), writer (d. 1948)
- 1894 - Lloyd Augustus Hall, pioneer of food chemistry
- 1899 - Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance in WW II.
- 1905 - Lillian Hellman, playwright (d. 1984)
- 1909 - Errol Flynn, actor (d. 1959)
- 1912 - Anthony Buckeridge, author (d. 2004)
- 1924 - Chet Atkins, country guitar player
- 1931 - Olympia Dukakis, actress
- 1931 - Martin Landau, actor
- 1936 - Danny Aiello, actor
- 1937 - Donald Sullivan, priest
- 1940 - Eugen Drewermann, theologian
- 1940 - John Mahoney, actor
- 1941 - Ulf Merbold, physicist and astronaut
- 1941 - Ilse Ritter, actress
- 1942 - Brian Wilson, bass player and singer for The Beach Boys
- 1944 - Cheryl Holdridge, actress and Mouseketeer
- 1945 - Shekhar Mehta, racer, winner of the Safari Rally
- 1945 - Anne Murray, singer
- 1946 - Bob Vila, handyman
- 1947 - Dolores "LaLa" Brooks, singer, member of the Crystals
- 1949 - Lionel Richie, musician
- 1951 - Tress MacNeille, voice actress (The Simpsons, Animaniacs, Rugrats)
- 1952 - John Goodman, U.S. actor
- 1954 - Michael Anthony, musician, Van Halen
- 1960 - John Taylor, musician, Duran Duran
- 1961 - Gerald Dixon, NFL player
- 1967 - Nicole Kidman, actress
- 1968 - Fred McAfee,
- 1970 - Prince Moulay Rachid, prince of Morocco
- 1971 - Jeordie White, bassist for Marilyn Manson from 1990 – 2002
- 1978 - Frank Lampard, football player (Chelsea)
- 1988 - Alexander Matthew Chong, photographer
Deaths
- 451 - Theodorid, King of the Visigoths
- 840 - Louis the Pious, King of the Franks, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (b. 778)
- 1597 - Willem Barentsz, navigator
- 1787 - Karl Friedrich Abel, German composer
- 1820 - Manuel Belgrano, Argentine lawyer and politician
- 1837 - William IV of the United Kingdom
- 1866 - Bernhard Riemann, mathematician (b. 1826)
- 1945 - Bruno Frank, author
- 1947 - Bugsy Siegel, U.S. gangster
- 1958 - Kurt Alder, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
- 1993 - Vince Foster, Deputy White House Counsel (suicide)
- 1995 - Emil Cioran, Romanian-born French philosopher and essayist
- 1998 - Conrad Schumann, East German borderguard, most famous escapee from East Germany.
- 1999 - Clifton Fadiman, author
- 2002 - Erwin Chargaff, biochemist
- 2002 - Tinus Osendarp, Dutch sprinter
- 2003 - Bob Stump, U.S. Congressman from Arizona
- 2005 - Jack Kilby, Nobel Laureate, founder of the Integrated Circuit
Holidays and observances
External links
June 19 - June 21 - May 20 - July 20 – listing of all days
See also: June 20, 1214, 1561, 1597, 1631
