July 20 Events |
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| July 20th, 2005 (July 20 2005) | Event | Canada becomes the fourth country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage, after the bill C-38 receives its Royal Assent. | |
| July 20th, 2003 (July 20 2003) | Event | France: Sixteen people are injured after two bombs explode outside a tax office in Nice. | |
| July 20th, 2002 (July 20 2002) | Event | South America: A fire in a discotheque in Lima, Peru kills over twenty-five. | |
| July 20th, 2001 (July 20 2001) | Event | The London Stock Exchange goes public. | |
| July 20th, 2001 (July 20 2001) | Event | Italy: The 27th Annual G8 summit opens in Genoa. An Italian protester in Genoa, Carlo Giuliani, is shot by police. | |
| July 20th, 2000 (July 20 2000) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 2000 (July 20 2000) | Event | In Zimbabwe, Parliament opens its new session and seats opposition members for the first time in a decade. | |
| July 20th, 2000 (July 20 2000) | Event | Terrorist Carlos the Jackal sues France in the European Court of Human Rights for allegedly torturing him. | |
| July 20th, 1999 (July 20 1999) | Event | The practise Falun Gong is officially banned and defined as an "evil cult" (xiejiao) by the government of the People s Republic of China, and a large-scale crackdown of its practitioners is launched. | |
| July 20th, 1998 (July 20 1998) | Event | Two hundred aid workers from CARE International, Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups leave Afghanistan on orders of the Taliban. | |
| July 20th, 1996 (July 20 1996) | Event | In Spain, an ETA bomb at an airport kills 35 | |
| July 20th, 1995 (July 20 1995) | Event | The Regents of the University of California vote to end all affirmative action in the UC system by 1997. | |
| July 20th, 1994 (July 20 1994) | Event | Israel s Shimon Peres visits Jordan, the highest ranking Israeli official to do so | Shimon Peres Quotes |
| July 20th, 1994 (July 20 1994) | Event | Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 s Fragment Q1 hits Jupiter. | |
| July 20th, 1992 (July 20 1992) | Event | Vaclav Havel resigns as president of Czechoslovakia. | Vaclav Havel Quotes |
| July 20th, 1990 (July 20 1990) | Event | A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb explodes at the International Stock Exchange in London. | |
| July 20th, 1989 (July 20 1989) | Event | Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe s show opens at Washington, D.C. s Project for the Arts after the Smithsonian Institution s Corcoran Gallery cancels it. | |
| July 20th, 1989 (July 20 1989) | Event | Burma s ruling junta puts opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. | |
| July 20th, 1987 (July 20 1987) | Event | UN Security Council Resolution 598, condemning the Iran-Iraq War and demanding cease-fire, is unanimously adopted. | |
| July 20th, 1986 (July 20 1986) | Event | In South Africa, police fire tear gas into a church service for families of those held under the government s emergency decrees. | |
| July 20th, 1985 (July 20 1985) | Event | The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles. | |
| July 20th, 1984 (July 20 1984) | Event | Officials of the Miss America pageant ask Vanessa Lynn Williams to quit after Penthouse published nude photos of her. | |
| July 20th, 1983 (July 20 1983) | Event | The Israeli cabinet votes to withdraw troops from Beirut but to remain in southern Lebanon. | |
| July 20th, 1982 (July 20 1982) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1980 (July 20 1980) | Event | The United Nations Security Council votes 14-0 that member states should not recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. | |
| July 20th, 1977 (July 20 1977) | Event | Johnstown is hit by a flash flood that kills eighty and causes $350 million in damage. | |
| July 20th, 1977 (July 20 1977) | Event | The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments. | |
| July 20th, 1976 (July 20 1976) | Event | The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars. | |
| July 20th, 1976 (July 20 1976) | Event | Vietnam War: The US military completes its troop withdrawal from Thailand. | |
| July 20th, 1975 (July 20 1975) | Event | India expels three reporters from The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and Newsweek because they refused to sign a pledge to abide by government censorship. | |
| July 20th, 1974 (July 20 1974) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1973 (July 20 1973) | Event | The US Senate passes the War Powers Act. | |
| July 20th, 1973 (July 20 1973) | Event | 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 . | |
| July 20th, 1973 (July 20 1973) | Event | Seventy-three government officials and military officers are charged with conspiracy to overthrow the Greek government. | |
| July 20th, 1973 (July 20 1973) | Event | Palestianian terrorists hijack a Japan Airlines jet en route from Amsterdam to Japan and force it down in Dubai. | |
| July 20th, 1973 (July 20 1973) | Event | First coast-to-coast black-owned and operated radio network: The National Black Network (NBN) begins operations. | |
| July 20th, 1971 (July 20 1971) | Event | The Soviet Union says it will support the People s Republic of China s admission to the United Nations | |
| July 20th, 1969 (July 20 1969) | Event | Apollo Program: Apollo 11 successfully lands the first man on the Moon. | |
| July 20th, 1969 (July 20 1969) | Event | Cease fire announced between Honduras and El Salvador, 6 days after the beginning of the "Football War" | |
| July 20th, 1965 (July 20 1965) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1965 (July 20 1965) | Event | Turkish prime minister Suat Hayri Urguplu returns from a visit to Moscow and announces the Soviet Union will provide aid to his country. | Ovid Quotes |
| July 20th, 1964 (July 20 1964) | Event | 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). | |
| July 20th, 1961 (July 20 1961) | Event | French military forces break the Tunisian siege of Bizerte. | |
| July 20th, 1960 (July 20 1960) | Event | Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world s first elected female head of government. | |
| July 20th, 1960 (July 20 1960) | Event | The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time. | George Washington Quotes |
| July 20th, 1960 (July 20 1960) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1960 (July 20 1960) | Event | The head of the Physics Department at the Israel Institute of Technology, Kurt Sitte, is arrested for espionage. | |
| July 20th, 1959 (July 20 1959) | Event | The Organization for European Economic Cooperation admits Spain. | |
| July 20th, 1958 (July 20 1958) | Event | Twenty-six are dead in an explosion at a military base near Kokin Breg, Yugoslavia. | |
| July 20th, 1954 (July 20 1954) | Event | Germany: Otto John, head of West Germany s secret service, defects to East Germany. | |
| July 20th, 1954 (July 20 1954) | Event | At Geneva, Switzerland, an armistice is signed that ends fighting in Vietnam and divides the country along the 17th parallel. | |
| July 20th, 1953 (July 20 1953) | Event | The United Nations Economic and Social Council votes to make UNICEF a permanent agency. | |
| July 20th, 1951 (July 20 1951) | Event | King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem. | |
| July 20th, 1950 (July 20 1950) | Event | Cold War: In Philadelphia, Harry Gold pleads guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs. | |
| July 20th, 1949 (July 20 1949) | Event | Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their nineteen-month war. | |
| July 20th, 1948 (July 20 1948) | Event | US President Harry S. Truman issues a peacetime military draft in the US amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union. | Harry S. Truman Quotes |
| July 20th, 1948 (July 20 1948) | Event | In New York City, twelve leaders of the Communist Party USA are indicted under the Smith Act including William Z. Foster and Gus Hall. | Will Smith Quotes |
| July 20th, 1947 (July 20 1947) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1947 (July 20 1947) | Event | The Viceroy of India says the people of the Northwest Frontier Province overwhelmingly voted the previous day to join Pakistan rather than India. | |
| July 20th, 1946 (July 20 1946) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1945 (July 20 1945) | Event | The US Congress approves the Bretton Woods Agreement. | |
| July 20th, 1944 (July 20 1944) | Event | World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt (known as the July 20 Plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. | Adolf Hitler Quotes |
| July 20th, 1944 (July 20 1944) | Event | World War II: American troops land on Guam near Port Apra. | |
| July 20th, 1944 (July 20 1944) | Event | Fifty are hurt in rioting in front of the presidential palace in Mexico City. | |
| July 20th, 1943 (July 20 1943) | Event | World War II: American and Canadian troops conquer Enna on Sicily. | |
| July 20th, 1942 (July 20 1942) | Event | World War II: Red Army troops take bridgeheads over the Don River near Voronezh. | |
| July 20th, 1942 (July 20 1942) | Event | World War II: The first unit of the Women s Army Corps begins training in Des Moines, Iowa. | |
| July 20th, 1941 (July 20 1941) | Event | Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief. | Joseph Stalin Quotes |
| July 20th, 1940 (July 20 1940) | Event | Denmark leaves the League of Nations. | |
| July 20th, 1940 (July 20 1940) | Event | US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Hatch Act of 1939, limiting political activity by Federal government employees. | |
| July 20th, 1938 (July 20 1938) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1937 (July 20 1937) | Event | Two black men accused of stabbing a policeman are taken by a mob from the county jail in Tallahassee, Florida and lynched. | |
| July 20th, 1936 (July 20 1936) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1935 (July 20 1935) | Event | Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashes into a Swiss mountain, killing thirteen. | |
| July 20th, 1934 (July 20 1934) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1933 (July 20 1933) | Event | Vice-Chancellor of Germany Franz von Papen and Vatican Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli sign a concordat on behalf of their respective nations. | Franz von Papen Quotes |
| July 20th, 1933 (July 20 1933) | Event | In London, 500,000 march against anti-Semitism. | |
| July 20th, 1933 (July 20 1933) | Event | Germany: Two-hundred Jewish merchants are arrested in Nuremberg and paraded through the streets. | |
| July 20th, 1932 (July 20 1932) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1932 (July 20 1932) | Event | Crowds in the capitals of Bolivia and Paraguay demand their governments declare war on the other after fighting on their border. | |
| July 20th, 1929 (July 20 1929) | Event | Soviet troops attempt to cross the Amur River into Manchuria near Blagoveschensk as tensions mount between the Soviet Union and the Republic of China. | |
| July 20th, 1928 (July 20 1928) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1926 (July 20 1926) | Event | A convention of the Methodist Church votes to allow women to become priests. | |
| July 20th, 1924 (July 20 1924) | Event | 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. | Martial Quotes |
| July 20th, 1922 (July 20 1922) | Event | The League of Nations awards mandates of Togoland to France and Tanganyika to the United Kingdom. | |
| July 20th, 1921 (July 20 1921) | Event | Air mail service begins between New York City and San Francisco. | |
| July 20th, 1921 (July 20 1921) | Event | Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson became the first woman to preside over the US House of Representatives. | |
| July 20th, 1918 (July 20 1918) | Event | World War I: German troops cross the Marne. | |
| July 20th, 1917 (July 20 1917) | Event | 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. | |
| July 20th, 1916 (July 20 1916) | Event | World War I: In Armenia, Russian troops capture Gumiskhanek. | |
| July 20th, 1907 (July 20 1907) | Event | A train wreck on the Pere Marquette Railroad near Salem, Michigan kills thirty and injures seventy more. | |
| July 20th, 1903 (July 20 1903) | Event | Ford Motor Company shipped its first car. | |
| July 20th, 1898 (July 20 1898) | Event | Spanish-American War: A boiler exploded on the USS Iowa (BB-4) off the coast of Santiago de Cuba. | |
| July 20th, 1894 (July 20 1894) | Event | The troops sent by Grover Cleveland to Chicago to end the Pullman Strike are recalled. | Grover Cleveland Quotes |
| July 20th, 1885 (July 20 1885) | Event | The Football Association legalises professionalism in football under pressure from the British Football Association. | |
| July 20th, 1881 (July 20 1881) | Event | Indian Wars:Sioux Chief Sitting Bull leads the last of his fugitive people in surrender to US troops at Fort Buford, North Dakota | |
| July 20th, 1877 (July 20 1877) | Event | Rioting in Baltimore, Maryland by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers is put down by the state militia, resulting in nine deaths. | |
| July 20th, 1871 (July 20 1871) | Event | British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada. | |
| July 20th, 1866 (July 20 1866) | Event | Austro-Prussian War: Battle of LissaThe Austrian Navy , led by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, defeats the Italian Navy near the island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea. | |
| July 20th, 1864 (July 20 1864) | Event | American Civil War: Battle of Peachtree CreekNear Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate forces led by General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attack Union troops under General William T. Sherman. | |
| July 20th, 1810 (July 20 1810) | Event | Citizens of Bogota, New Granada declare independence from Spain. | |
| July 20th, 1738 (July 20 1738) | Event | North America: French explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Verendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan. | |
| July 20th, 1712 (July 20 1712) | Event | The Riot Act takes effect in Great Britain. | |
| July 20th, 1656 (July 20 1656) | Event | Swedish forces under the command of King Charles X Gustav defeats the forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the Battle of Warsaw. | |
| July 20th, 1402 (July 20 1402) | Event | Ottoman-Timurid Wars: Battle of AnkaraTimur, ruler of Timurid Empire, defeated forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I. | |
| July 20th, 1304 (July 20 1304) | Event | Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling CastleKing Edward I of England takes the last rebel stronghold of the war. | |
