August
20
Independence
Day
Hungary : August 20 1000
August
20 : Sadbhawana Diwas
The birthday
of India's Late Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi on 20th August
is celebrated as Sadbhawana Diwas every year
Events
14 AD –
Agrippa Postumus, adoptive-son of the late Roman Emperor Augustus,
is executed by his guards while in exile under mysterious circumstances
636 – Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-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.
917 – Battle of Acheloos: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria decisively
defeats a Byzantine army.
1000 – The foundation of the Hungarian state by Saint Stephen.
Today celebrated as a National Day in Hungary.
1083 – Canonization of the first King of Hungary, Saint Stephen
and his son Saint Emeric.
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 Hochmeister 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.
1672 – Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his brother
Cornelis are brutally murdered by an angry mob in The Hague.
1710 – War of the Spanish Succession: a multinational army led
by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg defeats the Spanish-Bourbon
army commanded by the 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.
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 – Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.
1910 – The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred to as
the Big Blowup or the Big Burn) occurred in northeast Washington,
northern Idaho (the panhandle), and western Montana, burning
approximately 3 million acres (12,000 km²).
1914 – World War I: German forces occupy Brussels.
1920 – The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins
operations in Detroit, Michigan.
1920 – The National Football League, (NFL), is founded in the
United States.
1926 – Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai
(NHK) is established.
1938 – Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam – a record
that still stands.
1940 – In Mexico City exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky
is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramon Mercader. He dies
the next day.
1940 – 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 offensive.
1950 – Korean War: United Nations repel an offensive by North
Korean divisions attempting to cross the Naktong River and assault
the city of Taegu.
1955 – 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.
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 – Peru becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright
treaty.
1988 – Iran–Iraq War: a cease-fire is agreed after almost eight
years of war.
1988 – The Troubles: Eight British Army soldiers are killed
and 28 wounded when their bus is hit by a Provisional Irish
Republican Army roadside bomb in Northern Ireland (see Ballygawley
bus bombing).
1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames
following a collision, 51 people are killed.
1989 – The O-Bahn in Adelaide, the world's longest guided busway,
opens.
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 her pre-World War II statehood.
1993 – After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo
Peace Accords are signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington,
D.C. the following month.
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-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.
2002 – A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein
take over the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin for five hours before
releasing their hostages and surrendering.
2008 – Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid to Gran Canaria, skids
off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. 146 people are
killed in the crash, and 8 more die later. Only 18 people survive.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Bernard of Clairvaux
Oswine of Deira
Philibert of Jumièges
August 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Father's Day (Nepal)
Feast of Asmá’ (Bahá'í Faith)
Restoration of Independence Day, re-declaration of the independece
of Estonia from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Revolution of the King and People (Morocco)
Saint Stephen's Day (Hungary)
For details, contact Datacentre
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