September 20 - Events

Events

• 451 – The Battle of Châlons takes place in North Eastern France. Flavius Aetius's victory over Attila the Hun in a day of combat, is considered to be the largest battle in the ancient world.
• 1187 – Saladin begins the Siege of Jerusalem.
• 1260 – the Great Prussian Uprising among the old Prussians begins against the Teutonic Knights.
• 1378 – Cardinal Robert of Geneva, called by some theButcher of Cesena, is elected as Avignon Pope Clement VII, beginning the Papal schism.
• 1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with about 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe.
• 1596 – Diego de Montemayor founds the city ofMonterrey in New Spain.
• 1633 – Galileo Galilei is tried before the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for teaching that the Earth orbits the Sun.
• 1697 – The Treaty of Rijswijk is signed by France, England, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic ending the Nine Years' War (1688–97).
• 1737 – The finish of the Walking Purchase which forces the cession of 1.2 million acres (4,860 km²) of Lenape-Delaware tribal land to the Pennsylvania Colony.
• 1792 – French troops stop allied invasion of France, during the War of the First Coalitionat Valmy.
• 1835 – Farroupilha's Revolution begins in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
• 1848 – The American Association for the Advancement of Science is created.
• 1854 – Battle of Alma: British and French troops defeat Russians in the Crimea.
• 1857 – The Indian Rebellion of 1857 ends with the recapture of Delhi by troops loyal to theEast India Company.
• 1860 – The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII of the United Kingdom) visits theUnited States.
• 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chickamauga ends.
• 1870 – Bersaglieri corps enter Rome through the Porta Pia and complete the unification of Italy.
• 1871 – Bishop John Coleridge Patteson is martyred on the island of Nukapu, aPolynesian outlier island now in the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands. He is the first bishop of Melanesia.
• 1881 – Chester A. Arthur is inaugurated as the 21st President of the United Statesfollowing the assassination of James Garfield.
• 1891 – The first gasoline-powered car debuts in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States.
• 1906 – Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania is launched at the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
• 1920 – Foundation of the Spanish Legion.
• 1930 – Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is formed by Archbishop Mar Ivanios.
• 1942 – Holocaust in Letychiv, Ukraine. In the course of two days the German SS murders at least 3,000 Jews.
• 1946 – The first Cannes Film Festival is held.
• 1962 – James Meredith, an African-American, is temporarily barred from entering theUniversity of Mississippi.
• 1967 – RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 is launched at John Brown & Company, Clydebank,Scotland. It is operated by the Cunard Line.
• 1970 – Syrian tanks roll into Jordan in response to continued fighting between Jordan and the fedayeen.
• 1973 – Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in The Battle of the Sexes tennis match at theHouston Astrodome in Houston, Texas.
• 1977 – The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is admitted to the United Nations.
• 1979 – A coup d'état in the Central African Empire overthrows Emperor Bokasa I.
• 1982 – The National Football League players begin a 57-day strike.
• 1984 – A suicide bomber in a car attacks the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing twenty-two people.
• 1990 – South Ossetia declares its independence from Georgia.
• 2000 – The British MI6 Secret Intelligence Service building is attacked by a Russian-built Mark 22 anti-tank missile.
• 2001 – In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a "war on terror".
• 2002 – The Kolka-Karmadon rock/ice slide.
• 2003 – Maldives civil unrest: the death of prisoner Hassan Evan Naseem sparks a day of rioting in Malé.