June 20 in History

Historical Events on June 20

451

Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius' battles Attila the Hun. After the battle, which was inconclusive, Attila retreats, causing the Romans to interpret it as a victory.
1248

The University of Oxford receives its Royal charter.
1620

The Battle of Höchst takes place during the Thirty Years' War.
1631

The sack of Baltimore: The Irish village of Baltimore is attacked by Algerian pirates.
1652

Tarhoncu Ahmed Pasha is appointed Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
1685

Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declares himself King of England at Bridgwater.
1756

A British garrison is imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
1782

The U.S. Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States.
1787

Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention to call the government the 'United States'.
1789

Deputies of the French Third Estate take the Tennis Court Oath.
1819

The U.S. vessel SS Savannah arrives at Liverpool, United Kingdom. It is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, although most of the journey is made under sail.
1837

Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne.
1840

Samuel Morse receives the patent for the telegraph.
1862

Barbu Catargiu, the Prime Minister of Romania, is assassinated.
1863

American Civil War: West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.
1877

Alexander Graham Bell installs the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
1893

Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother.
1895

The Kiel Canal, crossing the base of the Jutland peninsula and the busiest artificial waterway in the world, is officially opened.
1900

Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese Army begins a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing, China.
1900

Baron Eduard Toll, leader of the Russian Polar Expedition of 1900, departs Saint Petersburg in Russia on the explorer ship Zarya, never to return.
1921

Workers of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills in the city of Chennai, India, begin a four-month strike.
1940

World War II: Italy begins an unsuccessful invasion of France.
1941

The United States Army Air Corps is deprecated to being the American training and logistics section of what is known until 1947 as the United States Army Air Forces, just two days before Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union.
1942

The Holocaust: Kazimierz Piechowski and three others, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp.
1943

The Detroit race riot breaks out and continues for three more days.
1943

World War II: The Royal Air Force launches Operation Bellicose, the first shuttle bombing raid of the war. Lancaster bombers damage the V-2 rocket production facilities at the Zeppelin Works while en route to an air base in Algeria.
1944

World War II: The Battle of the Philippine Sea concludes with a decisive U.S. naval victory. The lopsided naval air battle is also known as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot".
1944

Continuation War: The Soviet Union demands an unconditional surrender from Finland during the beginning of partially successful Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Offensive. The Finnish government refuses.
1944

The experimental MW 18014 V-2 rocket reaches an altitude of 176 km, becoming the first man-made object to reach outer space.
1945

The United States Secretary of State approves the transfer of Wernher von Braun and his team of Nazi rocket scientists to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip.
1948

The Deutsche Mark is introduced in Western Allied-occupied Germany. The Communists respond by imposing the Berlin Blockade four days later.
1956

A Venezuelan Super-Constellation crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Asbury Park, New Jersey, killing 74 people.
1959

A rare June hurricane strikes Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence killing 35.
1960

The Mali Federation gains independence from France (it later splits into Mali and Senegal).
1963

Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union and the United States sign an agreement to establish the so-called "red telephone" link between Washington and Moscow.
1972

Watergate scandal: An 18½-minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex.
1973

Snipers fire upon left-wing Peronists in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in what is known as the Ezeiza massacre. At least 13 are killed and more than 300 are injured.
1975

The film Jaws is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of that time and starting the trend of films known as "summer blockbusters".
1979

ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry against the regime.
1982

The Argentine Corbeta Uruguay base on Southern Thule surrenders to Royal Marine commandos in the final action of the Falklands War.
1990

Asteroid Eureka is discovered.
1990

The 7.4 Mw Manjil-Rudbar earthquake affects northern Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 35,000-50,000, and injuring 60,000-105,000.
1991

German Bundestag votes to move seat of government to Berlin.
1994

The 1994 Imam Reza shrine bomb explosion in Iran leaves at least 25 dead and 70 to 300 injured.
2003

The Wikimedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg, Florida.

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