History Events on August 20

Battle of Acheloos: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria decisively defeats a Byzantine army.

#Battle_of_Achelous_(917)

In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.

#Edmond,_Oklahoma

Pope Clement V pardons Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, absolving him of charges of heresy.

#Pope_Clement_V

In Mexico City, exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day.

#Leon_Trotsky

World War II: 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".

#World_War_II

The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit.

#WWJ_(AM)

Canonization of the first King of Hungary, Saint Stephen and his son Saint Emeric celebrated as a National Day in Hungary.

#King_of_Hungary

World War II: The Battle of Romania begins with a major Soviet Union offensive.

#Battle_of_Romania

Fifty-four people are killed when a suicide bomber detonates himself at a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey.

#August_2016_Gaziantep_bombing

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.

#Charles_Darwin

Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.

#Viking_program

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.

#Supreme_Court_of_Canada

Korean War: United Nations repel an offensive by North Korean divisions attempting to cross the Nakdong River and assault the city of Taegu.

#Korean_War

Cold War: Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring. East German participation is limited to a few specialists due to memories of the recent war. Only Albania and Romania refuse to participate.

#Cold_War

"Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park

#Yellowstone_fires_of_1988

Senegal breaks from the Mali Federation, declaring its independence.

#Senegal

Philosopher and general Wang Yangming defeats Zhu Chenhao, ending the Prince of Ning rebellion against the reign of the Ming dynasty's Zhengde Emperor.

#Wang_Yangming

Konrad von Wallenrode becomes the 24th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order.

#Konrad_von_Wallenrode

Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician and former MP S. Sivamaharajah is shot dead at his home in Tellippalai.

#Sri_Lankan_Civil_War

Battle of Fallen Timbers: American troops force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi warriors into a disorganized retreat.

#Battle_of_Fallen_Timbers

Steamboat Atlantic sank on Lake Erie after a collision, with the loss of at least 150 lives.

#Atlantic_(1848)

After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Accords are signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the following month.

#Oslo_Accords

The first Siege of Pensacola comes to an end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.

#Siege_of_Pensacola_(1707)

Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam, a record that stood for 75 years until it was broken by Alex Rodriguez.

#Lou_Gehrig

China Airlines Flight 120 caught fire and exploded after landing at Naha Airport in Okinawa, Japan.

#China_Airlines_Flight_120

World War I: Brussels is captured during the German invasion of Belgium.

#World_War_I

Agrippa Postumus, maternal grandson of the late Roman emperor Augustus, is executed by his guards under mysterious circumstances while in exile.

#Agrippa_Postumus

The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred to as the "Big Blowup" or the "Big Burn") occurs in northeast Washington, northern Idaho (the panhandle), and western Montana, burning approximately 3 million acres (12,000 km2).

#Great_Fire_of_1910

Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid, Spain to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. Of the 172 people on board, 146 die immediately, and eight more later die of injuries sustained in the crash.

#Spanair_Flight_5022

Voyager program: NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.

#Voyager_program

President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.

#President_of_the_United_States

Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid take control of the Levant away from the Byzantine Empire, marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia.

#Battle_of_Yarmouk

Richard I of England initiates the Massacre at Ayyadieh, leaving 2,600–3,000 Muslim hostages dead.

#Richard_I_of_England

The Troubles: Eight British soldiers are killed and 28 wounded when their bus is hit by an IRA roadside bomb in Ballygawley, County Tyrone.

#The_Troubles

Iran–Iraq War: A ceasefire is agreed after almost eight years of war.

#Iran-Iraq_War

The NS Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarks on its maiden voyage.

#NS_Savannah

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.

#Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky

Battle of Lens: French Duc d'Enghien defeats Spaniards

#Battle_of_Lens

War of the Spanish Succession: A multinational army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg defeats the Spanish-Bourbon army commanded by Alexandre Maître, Marquis de Bay in the Battle of Saragossa.

#War_of_the_Spanish_Succession

Estonia, occupied by and incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, issues a decision on the re-establishment of independence on the basis of legal continuity of its pre-occupation statehood.

#Estonia

Sun Yat-sen, Chinese revolutionary, forms the first chapter of T'ung Meng Hui, a union of all secret societies determined to bringing down the Manchus.

#Sun_Yat-sen

Seventy-two people are killed in Japan's Hiroshima Prefecture by a series of landslides caused by a month's worth of rain that fell in one day.

#Hiroshima_Prefecture

A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi embassy in Berlin, Germany for five hours before releasing their hostages and surrendering.

#Saddam_Hussein

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.

#Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union

U.S. embassy bombings: The United States launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

#1998_United_States_embassy_bombings

A prison riot in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, kills at least 20 people.

Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people are killed and 15 kidnapped.

The Firozabad rail disaster claimed 358 lives in Firozabad, India.

The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames following a collision. Fifty-one people are killed.

Battle of Philippeville: In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.

World War II: One hundred sixty-eight captured allied airmen, including Phil Lamason, accused by the Gestapo of being "terror fliers", arrive at Buchenwald concentration camp.

Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon H?s? Ky?kai (NHK) is established.

The National Football League is organized as the American Professional Football Conference in Canton, Ohio

The Spanish establish the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in the town that became Tucson, Arizona.

Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis are brutally murdered by an angry mob in The Hague.

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.