April 20 in History

Historical Events on April 20

1303

The Sapienza University of Rome is instituted by Pope Boniface VIII.
1453

Three Genoese galleys and a Byzantine blockade runner fight their way through an Ottoman blockading fleet a few weeks before the fall of Constantinople.
1534

Jacques Cartier begins his first voyage to what is today the east coast of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador.
1535

The sun dog phenomenon observed over Stockholm and depicted in the famous painting Vädersolstavlan.
1653

Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament.
1657

Admiral Robert Blake destroys a Spanish silver fleet under heavy fire at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
1657

Freedom of religion is granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City).
1689

Deposed monarch James II of England lays siege to Derry.
1752

Start of Konbaung-Hanthawaddy War, a new phase in the Burmese Civil War (1740-57).
1770

The Georgian king, Erekle II, abandoned by his Russian ally Count Totleben, wins a victory over Ottoman forces at Aspindza.
1775

American Revolutionary War: The Siege of Boston begins, following the battles at Lexington and Concord.
1789

George Washington arrives at Grays Ferry, Philadelphia while en route to Manhattan for his inauguration.
1792

France declares war against the "King of Hungary and Bohemia", the beginning of French Revolutionary Wars.
1800

The Septinsular Republic is established.
1809

Two Austrian army corps in Bavaria are defeated by a First French Empire army led by Napoleon at the Battle of Abensberg on the second day of a four-day campaign that ended in a French victory.
1810

The Governor of Caracas declares independence from Spain.
1818

The case of Ashford v Thornton ends, with Abraham Thornton allowed to go free rather than face a retrial for murder, after his demand for trial by battle is upheld.
1826

Major Gordon Laing becomes the first non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu.
1828

René Caillié becomes the second non-Muslim to enter, and the first to return from, Timbuktu, following Major Gordon Laing.
1836

U.S. Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.
1861

American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.
1862

Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard complete the experiment falsifying the theory of spontaneous generation.
1865

Astronomer Angelo Secchi demonstrates the Secchi disk, which measures water clarity, aboard Pope Pius IX's yacht, the L'Immaculata Concezion.
1876

The April Uprising begins. Its suppression shocks European opinion, and Bulgarian independence becomes a condition for ending the Russo-Turkish War.
1884

Pope Leo XIII publishes the encyclical Humanum genus.
1898

President William McKinley signed a joint resolution to Congress for declaration of War against Spain, beginning the Spanish-American War.
1902

Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.
1908

Opening day of competition in the New South Wales Rugby League.
1912

Opening day for baseball's Tiger Stadium in Detroit, and Fenway Park in Boston.
1914

Nineteen men, women, and children die in the Ludlow Massacre during a Colorado coal-miner's strike.
1916

The Chicago Cubs play their first game at Weeghman Park (currently Wrigley Field), defeating the Cincinnati Reds 7-6 in 11 innings.
1918

Manfred von Richthofen, a.k.a. The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims, his final victories before his death the following day.
1922

The Soviet government creates South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within Georgian SSR.
1945

World War II: US troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union.
1945

World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler makes his last trip to the surface to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth.
1945

Twenty Jewish children used in medical experiments at Neuengamme are killed in the basement of the Bullenhuser Damm school.
1946

The League of Nations officially dissolves, giving most of its power to the United Nations.
1961

Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed Cuban exiles against Cuba.
1968

English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood speech.
1972

Apollo 16, commanded by John Young, lands on the moon.
1999

Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and injured 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.
2007

Johnson Space Center shooting: William Phillips with a handgun barricades himself in NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.
2008

Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.
2010

The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last six months.
2012

One hundred twenty-seven people are killed when a plane crashes in a residential area near the Benazir Bhutto International Airport near Islamabad, Pakistan.
2013

A 6.6-magnitude earthquake strikes Lushan County, Ya'an, in China's Sichuan province, killing more than 150 people and injuring thousands.
2015

Ten people are killed in a bomb attack on a convoy carrying food supplies to a United Nations compound in Garowe in the Somali region of Puntland.

April 20 Birthdays

April 20 Deaths

Choose Another Date