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August 20 in History
Historical Events on August 20
AD 14
Agrippa Postumus, adopted son of the late Roman emperor Augustus, is executed by his guards under mysterious circumstances while in exile.
636
Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid take control of the Levant away from the Byzantine Empire, marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia.
917
Battle of Acheloos: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria decisively defeats a Byzantine army.
1000
The foundation of the Hungarian state by Saint Stephen, celebrated as a National Day in Hungary.
1083
Canonization of the first King of Hungary, Saint Stephen and his son Saint Emeric.
1191
Richard I of England initiates the Massacre at Ayyadieh, leaving 2,600-3,000 Muslim hostages dead.
1308
Pope Clement V pardons Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, absolving him of charges of heresy.
1391
Konrad von Wallenrode becomes the 24th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order.
1467
The Second Battle of Olmedo takes places as part of a succession conflict between Henry IV of Castile and his half-brother Alfonso, Prince of Asturias.
1519
Philosopher and general Wang Yangming defeats Zhu Chenhao, ending the Prince of Ning rebellion against the reign of the Ming dynasty's Zhengde Emperor.
1648
Battle of Lens: French Duc d'Enghien defeats Spaniards
1672
Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis are brutally murdered by an angry mob in The Hague.
1707
The first Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.
1710
War of the Spanish Succession: A multinational army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg defeats the Spanish-Bourbon army commanded by Alexandre Maître, Marquis de Bay in the Battle of Saragossa.
1775
The Spanish establish the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in the town that became Tucson, Arizona.
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.
1852
Steamboat Atlantic sank on Lake Erie after a collision, with the loss of at least 150 lives.
1858
Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.
1866
President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.
1882
Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.
1905
Sun Yat-sen, Chinese revolutionary, forms the first chapter of T'ung Meng Hui, a union of all secret societies determined to bringing down the Manchus.
1910
The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred to as the "Big Blowup" or the "Big Burn") occurs in northeast Washington, northern Idaho (the panhandle), and western Montana, burning approximately 3 million acres (12,000 km2).
1914
World War I: Brussels is captured during the German invasion of Belgium.
1920
The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit.
1920
The National Football League is organized as the American Professional Football Conference in Canton, Ohio
1926
Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) is established.
1938
Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam, a record that stood for 75 years until it was broken by Alex Rodriguez.
1940
In Mexico City, Mexico exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day.
1940
World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".
1944
World War II: 168 captured allied airmen, including Phil Lamason, accused by the Gestapo of being "terror fliers", arrive at Buchenwald concentration camp.
1944
World War II: The Battle of Romania begins with a major Soviet Union offensive.
1950
Korean War: United Nations repel an offensive by North Korean divisions attempting to cross the Nakdong River and assault the city of Taegu.
1955
Battle of Philippeville: In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.
1960
Senegal breaks from the Mali Federation, declaring its independence.
1962
The NS Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarks on its maiden voyage.
1968
Soviet Union-dominated Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring.
1975
Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.
1977
Voyager program: NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
1986
In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.
1988
"Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park
1988
Iran-Iraq War: A ceasefire is agreed after almost eight years of war.
1988
The Troubles: Eight British soldiers are killed and 28 wounded when their bus is hit by an IRA roadside bomb in Ballygawley, County Tyrone.
1989
The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames following a collision. Fifty-one people are killed.
1991
Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: More than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.
1991
Estonia, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, issues a decision on the re-establishment of independence on the basis of historical continuity of its pre-World War II statehood.
1993
After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Accords are signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the following month.
1995
The Firozabad rail disaster claimed 358 lives in Firozabad, India.
1997
Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people are killed and 15 kidnapped.
1998
The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.
1998
U.S. embassy bombings: The United States launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
2002
A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin, Germany for five hours before releasing their hostages and surrendering.
2006
Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician and former MP S. Sivamaharajah is shot dead at his home in Tellippalai.
2007
China Airlines Flight 120 caught fire and exploded after landing at Naha Airport in Okinawa, Japan.
2008
Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid, Spain to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. Of the 172 people on board, 146 die immediately, and eight more later die of injuries sustained in the crash.
2012
A prison riot in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, kills at least 20 people.
2014
Seventy-two people are killed in Japan's Hiroshima Prefecture by a series of landslides caused by a month's worth of rain that fell in one day.
2016
54 people are killed when a suicide bomber detonates himself at a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey.
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