June
20
World
Refugee Day
For years,
many countries and regions have been holding their own Refugee
Days and even Weeks. One of the most widespread is Africa Refugee
Day, which is celebrated on 20 June in several countries.
The UN General
Assembly, on 4 December 2000, adopted resolution 55/76 where
it noted that 2001 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention
relating to the Status of Refugees, and that the Organization
of African Unity (OAU) had agreed to have International Refugee
Day coincide with Africa Refugee Day on 20 June.
The General
Assembly therefore decided that, from 2001, 20 June would be
celebrated as World Refugee Day.
The theme
of this year’s observance is “Home” - and highlights the plight
of the world’s 15 million refugees, more than three-quarters
of them in the developing world, who have been uprooted from
their homes by conflict or persecution.
Events
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.
1214 – The University of Oxford receives its charter.
1605 – After only three months as tsar, 16-year-old Feodor II
of Russia is assassinated.
1631 – The sack of Baltimore: the Irish village of Baltimore
is attacked by Algerian pirates.
1652 – Tarhoncu Ahmet Paşa is appointed grand vezir 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, England,
United Kingdom. She 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.
1887 – Victoria Terminus, the busiest railway station in India,
opens in Bombay.
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.
1919 – 150 die at the Teatro Yaguez fire, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
1921 – Workers of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills in the city
of Chennai, India, begin a four-month strike.
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.
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.
1948 – Toast of the Town, later The Ed Sullivan Show, makes
its television debut.
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 – The so-called "red telephone" is established
between the Soviet Union and the United States following the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
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 – Ezeiza massacre in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Snipers fire
upon left-wing Peronists. At least 13 are killed and more than
300 are injured.
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 base (Corbeta Uruguay) on Southern Thule
surrenders to Royal Marine commandos in the final action of
the Falklands War.
1990 – Asteroid Eureka is discovered.
1991 – The German Bundestag votes to move the capital from Bonn
back to Berlin.
2003 – The WikiMedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg,
Florida.
2009 – During the Iranian election protests, the death of Neda
Agha-Soltan is captured on video and spreads virally on the
Internet, making it "probably the most widely witnessed
death in human history".
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Adalbert, Archbishop of Magdeburg
Florentina
Margareta Ebner (Beatified)
Pope Silverius
June 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of the National Flag (Argentina)
Earliest date for the summer solstice, and its related observance:
Earliest day on which Day of the Finnish Flag can fall, while
June 26 is the latest; celebrated on Saturday of Midsummer's
Day (Finland)
Litha / Midsummer celebrations in the northern hemisphere, Yule
in the southern hemisphere. (Neopagan Wheel of the Year)
Martyrs' Day (Eritrea)
West Virginia Day (West Virginia)
World Refugee Day (International)
For details, contact Datacentre
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