February 20 in History

Historical Events on February 20

1339

The Milanese army and the St. George's (San Giorgio) Mercenaries of Lodrisio Visconti clashed in the Battle of Parabiago.
1472

Orkney and Shetland are pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Margaret of Denmark.
1547

Edward VI of England is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
1685

René-Robert Cavelier establishes Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas.
1792

The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by United States President George Washington.
1798

Louis-Alexandre Berthier removes Pope Pius VI from power.
1810

Andreas Hofer, Tirolean patriot and leader of rebellion against Napoleon's forces, is executed.
1813

Manuel Belgrano defeats the royalist army of Pío de Tristán during the Battle of Salta.
1816

Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.
1835

The 1835 Concepción earthquake destroys Concepción, Chile.
1846

Polish insurgents lead an uprising in Kraków to incite a fight for national independence.
1864

American Civil War: Battle of Olustee: The largest battle fought in Florida during the war.
1865

End of the Uruguayan War, with a peace agreement between President Tomás Villalba and rebel leader Venancio Flores, setting the scene for the destructive War of the Triple Alliance.
1872

The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City.
1877

Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake receives its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
1901

The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time.
1909

Publication of the Futurist Manifesto in the French journal Le Figaro.
1913

King O'Malley drives in the first survey peg to mark commencement of work on the construction of Canberra.
1931

The Congress of the United States approves the construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California.
1933

The Congress of the United States proposes the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution that will end Prohibition in the United States.
1933

Adolf Hitler secretly meets with German industrialists to arrange for financing of the Nazi Party's upcoming election campaign.
1935

Caroline Mikkelsen becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.
1942

Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace.
1943

American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
1943

The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms.
1944

World War II: The "Big Week" began with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.
1944

World War II: The United States takes Eniwetok Island.
1952

Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.
1956

The United States Merchant Marine Academy becomes a permanent Service Academy.
1959

The Avro Arrow program to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate.
1962

Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes.
1965

Ranger 8 crashes into the Moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.
1971

The United States Emergency Broadcast System is accidentally activated in an erroneous national alert.
1979

Earthquake cracks Sinila volcanic crater in Dieng Plateau, releases poisonous H2S gas and kills 149 villagers in Indonesian province of Central Java.
1986

The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft. Remaining in orbit for 15 years, it is occupied for ten of those years.
1988

The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast votes to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, triggering the Nagorno-Karabakh War.
1991

In the Albanian capital Tirana, a gigantic statue of Albania's long-time leader, Enver Hoxha, is brought down by mobs of angry protesters.
1998

American figure skater Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest gold-medalist at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
2003

During a Great White concert in West Warwick, Rhode Island, a pyrotechnics display sets the Station nightclub ablaze, killing 100 and injuring over 200 others.
2005

Spain becomes the first country to vote in a referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin, but on a low turnout.
2009

Two Tamil Tigers aircraft packed with C4 explosives en route to the national airforce headquarters are shot down by the Sri Lankan military before reaching their target, in a kamikaze style attack.
2010

In Madeira Island, Portugal, heavy rain causes floods and mudslides, resulting in at least 43 deaths, in the worst disaster in the history of the archipelago.
2014

Dozens of Euromaidan anti-government protesters died in Ukraine's capital Kiev, many reportedly killed by snipers.
2015

Two trains collide in the Swiss town of Rafz resulting in as many as 49 people injured and Swiss Federal Railways cancelling some services.
2016

Six people are killed and two injured in multiple shooting incidents in Kalamazoo County, Michigan.

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