July 20 - Events

Events

• 70 – First Jewish-Roman War: Siege of Jerusalem - Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, storms the Fortress of Antonia north of the Temple Mount. The Roman army is drawn into street fights with the Zealots.
• 911 – Rollo lays siege to Chartres.
• 1304 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle – King Edward I of England takes the stronghold using the War Wolf.
• 1402 – Ottoman-Timurid Wars: Battle of Ankara – Timur, ruler of Timurid Empire, defeats forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I.
• 1656 – Swedish forces under the command of King Charles X Gustav defeat the forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the Battle of Warsaw.
• 1738 – North America: Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan.
• 1807 – Nicéphore Niépce was awarded a patent by Napoleon Bonaparte for the Pyréolophore, the world's firstinternal combustion engine, after it successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône in France.
• 1810 – Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada declare independence from Spain.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Peachtree Creek – Near Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate forces led byGeneral 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.
• 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 United States 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.
• 1898 – Spanish-American War: A boiler explodes on the USS Iowa off the coast of Santiago de Cuba.
• 1903 – Ford Motor Company ships its first car.
• 1907 – A train wreck on the Pere Marquette Railroad near Salem, Michigan, kills 30 and injures 70.
• 1916 – World War I: In Armenia, Russian troops capture Gumiskhanek.
• 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 Southern Methodist Church votes to allow women to become ministers.
• 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 Unionand 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 U.S., as police in Minneapolis fire upon striking truck drivers, during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934, killing two and wounding sixty-seven.
• 1934 – 1934 West Coast waterfront strike: In Seattle, police fire tear gas on and club 2,000 striking longshoremen. The governor of Oregoncalls 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.
• 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.
• 1938 – The United States Department of Justice files suit in New York City against the motion picture industry charging violations of theSherman Antitrust Act in regards to the studio system. The case would eventually result in a break-up of the industry in 1948.
• 1940 – Denmark leaves the League of Nations.
• 1940 – U.S. 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 namesLavrenti Beria its chief.
• 1942 – World War II: The first unit of the Women's Army Corps begins training in Des Moines, Iowa.
• 1944 – World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt (known as the 20 July plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.
• 1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt wins the Democratic Party nomination for the fourth and final time at the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
• 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 is completely blameless for the Japaneseattack 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 North-West Frontier Province overwhelmingly voted the previous day to join Pakistanrather than India.
• 1948 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman issues a peacetime military draft in the United States 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 andGus 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.
• 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 United States 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.
• 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).
• 1964 – The National Movement of the Revolution is instituted as the sole legal political party in the Republic of Congo.
• 1965 – Turkish prime minister Suat Hayri Urguplu returns from a visit to Moscow and announces the Soviet Union will provide aid to his country.
• 1968 – Special Olympics founded.
• 1969 – Apollo Program: Apollo 11 successfully lands on the Moon at 20:17 UTC on July 20.
• 1969 – A cease fire is 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 – 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 United States and the United Kingdom for attempts to settle the dispute. Syriaand 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 American Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
• 1976 – Vietnam War: The U.S. military completes its troop withdrawal from Thailand.
• 1976 – Hank Aaron hits his 755th home run, the final home run of his career.
• 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 centralLondon, 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 publishes 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.
• 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'sCorcoran Gallery cancels it.
• 1989 – Burma's ruling junta puts opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
• 1992 – Václav Havel resigns as president of Czechoslovakia.
• 1992 – The first post-Soviet monetary reform in Latvia ended, as the Soviet rouble lost its status as legal tender.
• 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.
• 1996 – In Spain, an ETA bomb at Reus Airport injures 53
• 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 banned in the People's Republic of China, and a large scale crackdown of the practice is launched.
• 2000 – In Zimbabwe, Parliament opens its new session and seats opposition members for the first time in a decade.
• 2000 – Carlos the Jackal sues France in the European Court of Human Rights for allegedly torturing him.
• 2002 – South America: A fire in a discotheque in Lima, Peru kills over twenty-five.
• 2003 – France: Sixteen people are injured after two bombs explode outside a tax office in Nice.
• 2006 - Ethiopian troops enter Somalian territory.