June 20
June 20 is the 171st day of the year (172nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 194 days remaining.
Events
- 1214 - University of Oxford receives its charter.
- 1756 - English garrison imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
- 1789 - Deputies of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath
- 1819 - The US vessel Savannah arrives at Liverpool. She is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, most of the journey was made under sail.
- 1837 - Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne.
- 1862 - Barbu Catargiu is assassinated.
- 1863 - West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.
- 1877 - Alexander Graham Bell installs world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton Ontario.
- 1919 - 150 die at the Teatro Yaguez fire, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.
- 1939 - Benny Goodman's Song School ends its radio series.
- 1948 - Toast of the Town, later The Ed Sullivan Show, debuts.
- 1956 - A Venezuelan Super-Constellation crashed in Atlantic Ocean off Ashbury Park, New Jersey killing 74 people
- 1960 - Independence of Mali and Senegal.
- 1963 - "Hotline" established between Soviet Union and United States.
- 1966 - Canada sells 336 million bushels of wheat to Soviet Union.
- 1969 - Jacques Chaban-Delmas becomes Prime Minister of France
- 1977 - Oil begins to flow through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS).
- 1980 - Roberto Duran starts his classic boxing trilogy with Sugar Ray Leonard by defeating him in Canada by a decision in 15 rounds, to gain the WBC world Welterweight championship.
- 1983 - LZW patent filed in USA.
- 1990 - German parliament decides to move the capital from Bonn to Berlin.
- 1990 - Asteroid Eureka discovered.
- 2001 - Pervez Musharraf becomes president of Pakistan
- 2001 - Andrea Yates drowns her children in a bathtub and admits to the crime. She would be sentenced to life in prison.
- 2003 - LZW patent expires in USA.
- 2003 - Bounce premieres at the Goodman Theatre.
- 2003 - Formation of Wikimedia Foundation announced.
Births
- 1561 - Sigismund, king of Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (d. 1632)
- 1634 - Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy (d. 1675)
- 1756 - Joseph Martin Kraus, composer
- 1763 - Wolfe Tone, Irish patriot
- 1771 - Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, philanthropist, entrepreneur (d. 1820)
- 1797 - Sophie (Frémiet) Rude, French artist (d. 1867)
- 1819 - Jacques Offenbach, composer (d. 1880)
- 1887 - Kurt Schwitters, painter (Dadaist), writer (d. 1948)
- 1899 - Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance in WW II
- 1905 - Lillian Hellman, playwright (d. 1984)
- 1909 - Errol Flynn, actor (d. 1959)
- 1924 - Chet Atkins, country guitar player
- 1931 - Olympia Dukakis, actress
- 1931 - Martin Landau, actor
- 1936 - Danny Aiello, actor
- 1940 - Eugen Drewermann, theologian
- 1940 - John Mahoney, actor
- 1941 - Ulf Merbold, physicist and astronaut
- 1941 - Ilse Ritter, actress
- 1942 - Brian Wilson, bass player and singer for The Beach Boys
- 1945 - Shekhar Mehta, racer, winner of the Safari Rally
- 1945 - Anne Murray, singer
- 1946 - Bob Vila, handyman
- 1949 - Lionel Richie, musician
- 1951 - Tress MacNeille, voice actress (The Simpsons, Animaniacs, Rugrats)
- 1952 - John Goodman, actor
- 1953 - Cyndi Lauper, singer
- 1967 - Nicole Kidman, actress
- 1982 - Michael Miller, civil rights activist
Deaths
- 1597 - Willem Barentsz, navigator, dies in the Arctic
- 1787 - Karl Friedrich Abel, German baroque composer
- 1837 - William IV of the United Kingdom
- 1923 - Pancho Villa, revolutionary
- 1945 - Bruno Frank, author
- 1947 - Bugsy Siegel, gangster
- 1995 - Emil Cioran, Romanian-born French philosopher and essayist
- 1999 - Clifton Fadiman, author
- 2002 - Erwin Chargaff, biochemist
- 2002 - Tinus Osendarp, Dutch sprinter
Holidays and observances
- Roman Empire - Festival in honor of Summanus
- Ancient Latvia - Zalu Diena
- UNHCR World Refugee Day
June 19 - June 21 - May 20 - July 20 -- listing of all days