August 20

is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 133 days remaining.

Events

636 - Battle of Yarmuk: Arab forces led by Khalid bin 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 Anchialus: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria invades Thrace and drives the Byzantines out.
1391 - Konrad IV von Wallenrode becomes the 24th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order.
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.
1804 - Lewis and Clark Expedition: The "Corps of Discovery", exploring the Louisiana Purchase, suffers its only death when Sergeant Charles Floyd dies, apparently from acute appendicitis.
1833 - Nat Turner leads his revolt against the Southern plantation owners of Southampton County, Virginia
1882 - Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.
1888 - Mutineers imprison Emin Pasha at Dufile.
1900 - Japan's primary school law is amended to provide for four years of mandatory schooling.
1914 - World War I: German forces occupy Brussels.
1920 - The first commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), begins operations in Detroit, Michigan.
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 - Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded in Mexico City by an assassin's ice axe. He will die the next day.
1944 - The Battle of Romania begins with a major Soviet offensive.
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 independence.
1968 - 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to end the "Prague Spring" of political liberalization.
1975 - Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.
1977 - Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
1982 - Lebanese Civil War: A multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon.
1986 - In Edmond, Oklahoma, US Postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.
1988 - Peru becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
1989 - In Beverly Hills, California, Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot and kill their wealthy parents.
1991 - Collapse of the Soviet Union: More than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev. Estonia reclaimed its independence and seceded from the Soviet Union. Estonia had been occupied by the Soviets for more than 50 years.
1993 - After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Peace Accords were signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the next month.
1994 - Circus elephant trainer Allen Campbell is crushed to death in Honolulu, Hawaii, by the performing elephant "Tyke".
1997 - Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people killed, 15 kidnapped.
1998 - The Supreme Court of Canada states Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.
1998 - U.S. embassy bombings: The United States military 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. The al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum is destroyed in the attack.

Births

1517 - Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, French church leader (d. 1586)
1561 - Jacopo Peri, Italian composer (d. 1633)
1601 - Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician (d. 1665)
1625 - Thomas Corneille, French dramatist (d. 1709)
1632 - Louis Bourdaloue, French Jesuit preacher (d. 1704)
1710 - Thomas Simpson, British mathematician (d. 1761)
1719 - Christian Mayer, Czech astronomer (d. 1783)
1719 - Charles-François de Broglie, marquis de Ruffec, French soldier and diplomat (d. 1791)
1779 - Jöns Jakob Berzelius, Swedish chemist (d. 1848)
1833 - Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (d. 1901)
1845 - St. Albert Chmielowski, Polish Catholic Saint (d. 1916)
1847 - Bolesław Prus, Polish writer (d. 1912)
1860 - Raymond Poincaré, French statesman (d. 1934)
1881 - Edgar Guest, English poet (d. 1959)
1897 - Tarjei Vesaas, Norwegian writer (d. 1970)
1890 - H. P. Lovecraft, American writer (d. 1937)
1901 - Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
1905 - Jean Gebser, German-born author, linguist, and poet (d. 1973)
1905 - Jack Teagarden, American musician (d. 1964)
1908 - Al Lopez, baseball player and manager (d. 2005)
1910 - Eero Saarinen, Finnish architect (d. 1961)
1913 - Roger Wolcott Sperry, American neurobiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1994)
1918 - Jacqueline Susann, American novelist (d. 1974)
1923 - Jim Reeves, American singer (d. 1964)
1931 - Don King, American boxing promoter
1932 - Anthony Ainley, British actor (d. 2004)
1932 - Vasily Aksyonov, Russian novelist
1934 - Armi Kuusela, Finnish beauty queen
1935 - Ron Paul, American politician
1936 - Hideki Shirakawa, Japanese chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1937 - Andrei Konchalovsky, Russian film director
1939 - Fernando Poe Jr., Filipino actor and presidential candidate
1940 - Rubén Hinojosa, American politician
1941 - Slobodan Milošević, President of Serbia (d. 2006)
1941 - Robin Oakley, British journalist
1942 - Isaac Hayes, American singer, songwriter, and actor
1943 - Sylvester McCoy, Scottish actor
1944 - Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (d. 1991)
1946 - Connie Chung, American journalist
1946 - N.R. Narayana Murthy, Indian businessman
1948 - Robert Plant, English singer (Led Zeppelin)
1948 - John Noble, Australian Actor
1949 - Phil Lynott, Irish musician (d. 1986)
1951 - Greg Bear, American author
1952 - John Hiatt, American musician
1954 - Al Roker, American television broadcaster
1955 - Agnes Chan, Hong Kong singer and writer
1956 - Joan Allen, American actress
1961 - Greg Egan, Australian author
1962 - Sophie Aldred, English actress
1962 - James Marsters, American actor
1965 - KRS-One, American rapper
1966 - Dimebag Darrell, American guitarist (Pantera and Damageplan) (d. 2004)
1968 - Yuri Shiratori, Japanese voice actress and singer
1970 - John Carmack, American computer game programmer
1970 - Fred Durst, American singer (Limp Bizkit)
1971 - Steve Stone, English footballer
1973 - Todd Helton, baseball player
1974 - Maxim Vengerov, Russian violinist
1976 - Chris Drury, American hockey player
1977 - Mayra Veronica, Cuban model and actress
1979 - Cory Sullivan, baseball player
1981 - Bernard Mendy, French footballer
1982 - Joshua Kennedy, Australian footballer
1984 - Mirai Moriyama, Japanese actor
1986 - Robert Clark, Canadian actor
1987 - Cătălina Ponor, Romanian gymnast

Deaths

984 - Pope John XIV
1384 - Geert Groote, Dutch founder of the Brethren of the Common Life (b. 1340)
1572 - Miguel López de Legazpi, Spanish conquistador (b. 1502)
1580 - Jeronymo Osorio, Portuguese historian (b. 1506)
1611 - Tomás Luis de Victoria, Spanish composer (b. 1548)
1639 - Martin Opitz von Boberfeld, German poet (b. 1597)
1643 - Anne Hutchinson, English Puritan preacher (b. 1591)
1648 - Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury, English diplomat, poet, and philosopher (b. 1583)
1672 - Johan de Witt, Dutch politician (b. 1625)
1672 - Cornelis de Witt, Dutch politician (b. 1623)
1680 - William Bedloe, English informer (b. 1650)
1701 - Charles Sedley, English playwright (b. 1639)
1707 - Nicolas Gigault, French organist and composer (b. 1627)
1773 - Enrique Florez, Spanish historian (b. 1701)
1811 - Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French explorer (b. 1729)
1823 - Pope Pius VII (b. 1740)
1825 - William Waldegrave, 1st Baron Radstock, Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1753)
1887 - Jules Laforgue, French poet (b. 1860)
1904 - René Waldeck-Rousseau, French statesman (b. 1846)
1912 - William Booth, English founder of the Salvation Army (b. 1829)
1914 - Pope Pius X (b. 1835)
1915 - Paul Ehrlich, German scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1854)
1917 - Adolf von Baeyer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1835)
1961 - Percy Williams Bridgman, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1882)
1971 - Rashid Minhas, Pakistani Air Force pilot (b. 1951)
1986 - Milton Acorn, Canadian poet (b. 1923)
1998 - Raquel Rastenni, Danish singer (b. 1915)
2001 - Sir Fred Hoyle, English astronomer and science fiction writer (b. 1915)
2005 - Thomas Herrion, American football player (heart disease) (b. 1981)
2005 - Krzysztof Raczkowski, Polish drummer (b. 1970)

Holidays and observances

RC saints - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
Bahá'í Faith - Feast of Asmá (Names) - First day of the ninth month of the Bahá'í Calendar
Estonia - Restoration Day
Hungary - St. Stephen's day, the main national holiday in Hungary
Morocco - Revolution of the King and the People Day

External links

BBC: On This Day

August 19 - August 21 - July 20 - September 20 -- listing of all days

Gourt Home::Gourt :: August 20

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and observances

External links