June 20
June 20 is the 171st day of the year (172nd in
leap years) in the
Gregorian Calendar, with 194 days remaining. It is the last day of the spring season in the
Northern Hemisphere and the last day of the autumn season in the
Southern Hemisphere.
*
451 - According to some sources, this was the date of 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
U.S. 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, the
Prime Minister of
Romania, 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" is established between
Soviet Union and
United States following the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
*
1963 -
Leave it to Beaver ends.
*
1966 -
Canada sells 336 million bushels (9.14
teragrams) of
wheat to
Soviet Union.
*
1969 -
Jacques Chaban-Delmas becomes
Prime Minister of
France.
*
1973 -
Ezeiza massacre in
Buenos Aires,
Argentina. Snipers fired upon left-wing
peronists. At least 13 are killed and more than 300 injured.
*
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 -
Andrea Yates drowns her five children in a bathtub in their
Houston, Texas home.
*
2001 -
Pervez Musharraf becomes
president of
Pakistan.
*
2003 -
LZW patent expires in
USA.
*2003 - Formation of
Wikimedia Foundation announced.
*
1005 -
Ali az-Zahir, caliph (d.
1036)
*
1389 -
John, Duke of Bedford, regent of England (d.
1435)
*
1566 (
O.S.) - King
Sigismund III Vasa (d.
1632)
*
1583 -
Jacob De la Gardie, Swedish soldier and statesman (d.
1652)
*
1634 -
Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy (d.
1675)
*
1642 (
O.S.) -
George Hickes, English minister and scholar (d.
1715)
*
1647 -
John George III, Elector of Saxony (d.
1691)
*
1717 -
Jacques Saly, French sculptor (d.
1776)
*
1723 (
O.S.) -
Adam Ferguson, Scottish philosopher and historian (d.
1816)
* 1723 (
O.S.) -
Theophilus Lindsey, English theologian (d.
1808)
*
1756 -
Joseph Martin Kraus, Swedish composer (d.
1792)
*
1763 -
Wolfe Tone, Irish patriot (d.
1798)
*
1771 -
Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, Scottish philanthropist and entrepreneur (d.
1820)
*
1786 -
Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, French poet (d.
1859)
*
1808 -
Samson Raphael Hirsch, German rabbi (d.
1888)
*
1819 -
Jacques Offenbach, German composer (d.
1880)
*
1858 -
Charles W. Chesnutt, American writer (d.
1932)
*
1860 -
Jack Worrall, Australian cricketer, footballer, and coach (d.
1937)
*
1861 -
Frederick Hopkins, English biochemist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (d.
1947)
*
1872 -
George Carpenter, the 5th General of
The Salvation Army (d.
1948)
*
1887 -
Kurt Schwitters, German painter and writer (d.
1948)
*
1891 -
John A. Costello, second
Taoiseach of the
Republic of Ireland (d.
1976)
*
1896 -
Wilfrid Pelletier, French Canadian conductor (d.
1982)
*
1899 -
Jean Moulin, French Resistance leader (d.
1943)
*
1905 -
Lillian Hellman, American playwright (d.
1984)
*
1907 -
Jimmy Driftwood, American songwriter and musician (d.
1998)
*
1909 -
Errol Flynn, Australian actor (d.
1959)
*
1912 -
Anthony Buckeridge, English author (d.
2004)
*
1915 -
Terence Young, British film director (d.
1994)
*
1916 -
Jean-Jacques Bertrand, premier of
Quebec (d.
1973)
*
1924 -
Chet Atkins, American guitar player (d.
2001)
* 1924 -
Audie Murphy, American actor (d.
1971)
*
1928 -
Jean-Marie Le Pen, French politician
*
1930 -
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Polish artist
*
1931 -
Olympia Dukakis, American actress
* 1931 -
Martin Landau, American actor
*
1933 -
Danny Aiello, American actor
*
1934 -
Rossana Podestà , Italian actress
*
1935 -
Len Dawson, Former football player
*
1937 -
Jerry Keller, pop singer and songwriter
*
1940 -
Eugen Drewermann, German theologian
* 1940 -
John Mahoney, English actor
*
1941 -
Ulf Merbold, German physicist and astronaut
*
1942 -
Brian Wilson, American popular music composer and singer; founder of
The Beach Boys*
1944 -
Cheryl Holdridge, American actress
*
1945 -
Anne Murray, Canadian singer
*
1946 -
Bob Vila, television presenter
* 1946 -
Xanana Gusmão,
President of East Timor* 1946 -
Andre Watts, American pianist
*
1947 -
Dolores "LaLa" Brooks, American singer (
the Crystals)
* 1947 -
Candy Clark, American actress
*
1948 -
Ludwig Scotty,
President of Nauru*
1949 -
Lionel Richie, American musician and singer (
The Commodores)
*
1951 -
Tress MacNeille, American voice actress
* 1951 -
Paul Muldoon, Northern Irish poet
*
1952 -
John Goodman, American actor
* 1952 -
Larry Riley, American actor (d.
1992)
*
1954 -
Michael Anthony, American musician
*
1956 -
Ace Andres, American musician
*
1958 -
Chuck Wagner, American actor
*
1960 -
John Taylor, English musician (
Duran Duran)
* 1960 -
Jeremy Monteiro, Singaporean pianist
*
1963 -
Viktor Kožený, Czech businessman
*
1967 -
Nicole Kidman, Australian actress
*
1968 -
Robert RodrÃguez, American filmmaker
*
1970 -
Russell Garcia, British field hockey player
* 1970 -
Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco*
1971 -
Josh Lucas, American actor
*
1971 -
Jeordie White, American bassist
*
1973 -
Chino Moreno, American musician (
Deftones)
*
1977 -
Stefán H. Ã"feigsson,
Icelandic space engineer
*
1978 -
Frank Lampard, English footballer
*
1981 -
Ardian Gashi, Norwegian footballer
*1981 -
Alisan Porter, American actress and singer
*
1988 -
Shefali Chowdhury, Welsh actress
*
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, Dutch navigator
*
1668 -
Heinrich Roth, German Sanskrit scholar (b.
1620)
*
1776 -
Benjamin Huntsman, English inventor and manufacturer (b.
1704)
*
1787 -
Karl Friedrich Abel, German composer (b.
1723)
*
1800 -
Abraham Gotthelf Kästner, German mathematician (b.
1719)
*
1820 -
Manuel Belgrano, Argentine lawyer and politician (b.
1770)
*
1837 -
William IV of the United Kingdom (b.
1765)
*
1866 -
Bernhard Riemann, German mathematician (b.
1826)
*
1869 -
Toshizou Hijikata,
Shinsengumi vice-commander (b.
1835)
*
1870 -
Jules de Goncourt, French writer (b.
1830)
*
1906 -
John Clayton Adams, British Landscape Artist (b.
1840)
*
1925 -
Josef Breuer, Austrian psychologist (b.
1842)
*
1945 -
Bruno Frank, German author (b.
1878)
*
1947 -
Bugsy Siegel, American gangster (whacked) (b.
1906)
*
1952 -
Luigi Fagioli, Italian race car driver (b.
1898)
*
1958 -
Kurt Alder, German chemist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1902)
*
1972 -
Howard Deering Johnson, founder of
Howard Johnson's (b.
1897)
*
1976 -
Lou Klein, baseball player (b.
1918)
*
1978 -
Mark Robson, Canadian film director and producer (b.
1913)
*
1993 -
Vince Foster, Deputy White House Counsel (suicide) (b.
1945)
*
1995 -
Emil Cioran, Romanian-born French philosopher and essayist (b.
1911)
*
1997 -
Lawrence Payton, American singer (
The Four Tops) (b.
1938)
*
1998 -
Conrad Schumann, East German border guard (b.
1942)
*
1999 -
Clifton Fadiman, American author (b.
1902)
*
2002 -
Erwin Chargaff, Austrian biochemist (b.
1905)
* 2002 -
Tinus Osendarp, Dutch runner (b.
1916)
*
2003 -
Bob Stump, U.S. Congressman from Arizona (b.
1927)
*
2005 -
Jack Kilby, American electrical engineer, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physics (b.
1923)
* 2005 -
Larry Collins, American writer (b.
1929)
*
2006 -
Billy Johnson, baseball player (b.
1918)
*Day of The
Royal Victorian Order.
*
Roman Empire – Festival in honor of
Summanus.
*Ancient
Latvia –
Zalu Diena.
*
UNHCR -
World Refugee Day.
*
Flag Day in
Argentina (
1938).
*
West Virginia – West Virginia Day.
*
American Radio Relay League –
Bring your Handy-Talky to Work DayLiturgical feasts
*
Saint Adalbert of Magdeburg (died 981)
*
Saint Silvere (died 537)
*
Saint Benigna*
Saint Florentina*
BBC: On This DayJune 19 -
June 21 -
May 20 -
July 20 –
listing of all days