|
|
- 0636 Battle of Yarmuk: Arab forces led by Khalid bin Walid take control of Syria and Palestine away from the Byzantine Empire, marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia.
- 0917 Battle of Anchialus: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria invades Thrace and drives the Byzantines out.
- 0917 The Bulgarian czar Symeon overruns Thrace in violation of a 913 agreement with Constantinople The Byzantines launch a counterattack but are routed August 20 at Anchialus Symeon gains control of the Balkans
- 1000 The foundation of the Hungarian state, Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary.
- 1391 Konrad von Wallenrode becomes the 24th Hochmeister of the Teutonic Order.
- 1583 Humphrey Gilbert c1537-1583 sails to Cape Race Newfoundland to fish for cod and explore mainland; sends two ships back to England.
- 1620 Hudson's Bay Company employee Henry Kelsey sees buffalo on the Prairies, southwest of The Pas; the first white man to describe them.
- 1672 Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis were brutally murdered by an angry mob in The Hague.
- 1781 George Washington begins to move his troops south to fight Cornwallis
- 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers - American troops force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi warriors into a disorganized retreat.
- 1794 Gen Mad Anthony Wayne routes Indians at Fallen Timbers, Ohio
- 1852 Steamer "Atlantic" collided with fishing boat, sinks with 250 aboard
- 1865 Pres Johnson proclaims an end to "insurrection" in Tx
- 1866 Pres Andrew Johnson formally declares Civil War over
- 1866 President Andrew Johnson formally declared the U.S. Civil War over.
- 1882 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.
- 1882 The first CPR train reaches Regina Saskatchewan
- 1888 Mutineers imprison Emin Pasha at Dufile.
- 1896 Dial telephone patented
- 1900 Japan's primary school law is amended to provide for four years of mandatory schooling.
- 1908 Congo Free State becomes the Belgian Congo 1912 Plant Quarantine Act goes into effect
- 1913 First pilot to parachute from a French aircraft
- 1914 German forces occupy Brussels, Belgium during WW I
- 1914 World War I: German forces occupy Brussels.
- 1918 Britain opens offensive on Western front during WW I
- 1920 First US coml radio, 8MK (WWJ), Detroit began daily broadcasting
- 1920 The first commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), begins operations in Detroit, Michigan.
- 1925 Major Georges-P Vanier appointed CO of the 22e Régiment at Quebec.
- 1926 Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon Hs Kykai (NHK) is established.
- 1929 First airship flight around the Earth flying eastward completed
- 1938 Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam - a record that still stands.
- 1940 British PM Churchill says of the Royal Air Force, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"
- 1940 Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded in Mexico City by an assassin's ice axe. He dies the next day.
- 1940 Leon Trotsky, assassinated in Mexico City by Stalin agents, dies 8/21
- 1942 Dim-out regulations implemented in SF
- 1944 127 Flying Fortress Bombers drop high-explosives on the factory areas at Auschwitz, less than five miles east of the gas-chambers.
- 1944 The Battle of Romania begins with a major Soviet offensive.
- 1947 Turner Caldwell in D-558-I sets aircraft speed record, 1131 kph
- 1948 US expels Soviet Consul General in New York, Jacob Lomakin
- 1949 78,382 watch the White Sox play the Indians at Cleveland
- 1949 Hungary (Magyar People's Republic) accepts constitution
- 1951 Visitor posting - Candy Loftus Thompson was born in Des Moines, IA!!! - USA
- 1953 Russia publicly acknowledges hydrogen bomb test detonation
- 1953 The Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
- 1955 First airplane to exceed 1800 mph (2897 kph)-HA Hanes, Palmdale Ca
- 1955 Hundreds killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria
- 1955 In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.
- 1956 Republicans convene at Cow Palace
- 1957 USAF ballon breaks an altitude record at 102,000' (310,896 m)
- 1959 Marine Helicopter Squadron 261, operating from the amphibious assault ship Thetis Bay, completed a week of relief operations in flood-stricken Taiwan in which it airlifted 1,600,540 pounds of cargo and 833 passengers on 898 missions.
- 1960 Senegal breaks from the Mali federation, declaring independence.
- 1960 USSR recovers 2 dogs; first living organisms to return from space
- 1962 Visitor posting - Steve Lockridge, guitarist for Nehemiah, was born this day at 7:03 AM. - USA
- 1964 President Johnson signs Economic Opportunity Act (totaling nearly $1 billion)
- 1965 Visitor posting - Natalia Marthina Venter - special girl born with a HEART OF GOLD
- 1968 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to end the "Prague Spring" of political liberalization.
- 1968 650,000 Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia
- 1969 All four Beatles were together in the recording studio for the final time as they finished the Abbey Road LP.
- 1970 Visitor posting - I DAN BATES WAS BORN AND THUS THE WORLD BECAME A BETTER PLACE - USA
- 1971 Visitor posting - August 20, 1971 Melicha K. Rideout is born.
- 1973 Saskatchewan Rough Rider fullback George Reed sets all time world pro football rushing record, beating the 12,312 yards held by the NFL's Jimmy Brown
- 1974 Congress votes to reduce aid to South Vietnam from $1 Billion to $700 Million. Majority of the cuts were for military supplies.
- 1975 Il-62 crashes south of Damascus, Syria, killing 126
- 1975 Viking 1 launched toward orbit around Mars, soft landing
- 1975 Viking Program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.
- 1977 NASA launches Voyager 2 towards Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
- 1977 Number one hit on UK music charts - Brotherhood Of Man - Angelo
- 1977 Voyager Program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
- 1978 Gunmen open fire on an Israeli El Al Airline bus in London
- 1979 The East Coast Main Line rail route between England and Scotland is restored when the Penmanshiel Diversion opens.
- 1979 Visitor posting - August 20, 1979 Matt Parker, future youth minister, is born
- 1980 Reinhold Messner of Italy is first to solo ascent Mt Everest
- 1980 UN Security Council condemns (14-0, US abstains) Israeli declaration that all of Jersualem is its capital
- 1982 Lebanese Civil War: A multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon.
- 1982 Mexican Treasury Secretary Jesus Silva Herzog tells foreign bankers that Mexico cannot repay her $60 billion foreign debt, the first Third World country to default
- 1984 Visitor posting - Joseph Charles Hahn born at St. John's Hosp., Fargo, ND 8:36 am - USA
- 1985 Israel ships 96 TOWs to Iran on behalf of the US
- 1986 In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.
- 1986 Mail carrier Patrick Sherrill, Edmond Ok, shot 14 fellow workers dead
- 1986 Visitor posting - Jake C - the best brunette son ever was born! - USA
- 1987 The Canadian federal government slaps a total ban on smoking in public service offices, starting Jan. 1, 1988. Smoking by government employees at all public service counters ends immediately, well maybe not quite??
- 1987 Visitor posting - mohamed guellil born. my pet is a dog named liza - Algeria
- 1988 "Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park
- 1988 Visitor posting - I T.J. Burrden Was Born - USA
- 1988 In the Nepal-India border region a 6.6 quake killed 721, 6,553 injured and 64,470 buildings damaged in eastern Nepal
- 1988 Iran-Iraq War: A cease-fire is agreed to after almost eight years of war.
- 1988 Peru becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
- 1989 In Ethiopia a 6.3 earthquake killed 2, injured 2 and damage and rockslides caused in the Galafi-Yoboki area
- 1990 George Steinbrenner steps down as NY Yankee owner
- 1990 Iraq moves Western hostages to military installations (human shields)
- 1991 Estonia secedes from the Soviet Union.
- 1991 Visitor posting - yoganand sagar birthday - India
- 1992 Visitor posting - Aug 20, 1992 Nnamdi Mitchel Obodoakor is born
- 1992 Visitor posting - Chelsie Ann-Marie Loveless was born in Somerset, Ky - USA
- 1992 Visitor posting - Rachel Kramer was born
- 1993 After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Peace Accords were signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the next month.
- 1994 Visitor posting - SHANNIKA CAMPBELL WAS BORN !!! - USA
- 1995 Visitor posting - Jade Klaus was born! - USA
- 1995 Visitor posting - Johnel Jones the one n only was born - USA
- 1997 Hudson Bay Railway, owned by Omnitrax of Denver, Colorado, takes over operation of former CN lines to Flin Flon, Lyn Lake and Churchill.
- 1997 Visitor posting - Tieran Rosefield is born - USA
- 1997 Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people killed, 15 kidnapped.
- 1998 The Supreme Court of Canada states Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.
- 1998 U.S. embassy bombings: The United States military launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum is destroyed in the attack.
- 1999 Falun Gong is officially banned and defined as an "evil cult" by China A large sale persecution of ths practitioners is launched
- 2001 The 27th Annual G8 summit opens in Genoa, Italy and an Italian protestor Carlo Giuliani is shot by police
- 2002 A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein took over the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin for five hours before releasing their hostages and giving up.
- 2002 Visitor posting - Personal Posting - Romana Zemankova and Jeff Beaver Married in Aviano Italy
- 2003 Sizteen people are injured after two bombs explode outside a tax office in France
- 2005 Canada becomes the fourth country in the world to legalize same sex marriages
- 2009 18 prospectors are killed overnight in a diamond mine in Kasai province in central Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- 2009 A bicycle bomb explodes near a restaurant in Baghdad, killing two people.
- 2009 Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988, is released on compassionate grounds due to terminal cancer, and boards a flight to Libya.
- 2009 Elizabeth Ramos and Louis Williams, owners of defense contracting company Technical Logistics, admit to bribing an employee of the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in exchange for defense contracts.
- 2009 Switzerland's president, Hans-Rudolf Merz, apologizes to the Libyan government for last year's arrest of a son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
- 2009 Visitor posting - Our son KEIRON NATHAN WAS BORN - United Kingdom
- 2010 Visitor posting - Aug 20, 2010 Louise Blackwell retires on her 80th birthday, Oak Grove, LA - USA
More historical events added daily - keep checking back