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2024 Calendar

August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 133 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

Up to 1900

14 – Agrippa Postumus, adopted son of the deceased emperor Augustus, is executed by his guards while in exile under mysterious circumstances.
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.
1000 – Date of the official founding of Hungary by Saint Stephen.
1083 – Canonization of Saint Stephen of Hungary and his son, Saint Emeric.
1391 – Konrad von Wallenrode becomes the 24th Hochmeister of Teutonic Order.
1467 – The Second Battle of Olmedo takes place as part of the succession conflict between Henry IV of Castile and his half–brother, Alfonso, Prince of Asturias.
1519 – Philosopher and General Wang Yangming defeats Zhu Chenhao, ending the Prince of Ning rebellion against the Ming Dynasty's Zhengde Emperor.
1619 – First Africans arrive in the US, transported by the Dutch, and are sold as servants in Jamestown, Virginia.
1630 – Lemonade is invented in Paris, France.
1672 – Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his brother, Cornelis de Witt, are brutally murdered by an angry mob in The Hague.
1707 – The first Siege of Pensacola ends with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida, from the Spanish.
1710 – War of the Spanish Succession: A multinational (of different nationalities) army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg defeats the Spanish Bourbon army commanded by Alexandre Maitre, Marquis de Bray in the Battle of Zaragoza.
1728 – Vitus Bering lands on St. Lawrence Island in the now–named Bering Sea. The island is now part of the US state of Alaska.
1775 – Spanish colonists establish the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson, in the town that would become 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.
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
1857 – The ship Dunbar sinks off Sydney Heads, 121 people drown.
1857 – First book published by an Australian female writer: Gertrude the Emigrant by Caroline Atkinson.
1858 – Charles Darwin first publishes his Theory of Evolution through natural selection alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.
1860 – In Melbourne, Robert O'Hara Burke and William Wills begin their south–north expedition of Australia. They successfully go from the South to North but both die on they way back south in late June 1861.
1866 – US President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War to be over.
1868 – The Abergele train disaster in North Wales kills 33 people.
1882 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.
1892 – The Celtic Park football stadium opens in Glasgow, Scotland. It is home to Celtic FC.

1901 – 2000

1910 – Fire rips through parts of eastern Washington State, northern Idaho and western Montana.
1914 – World War I: German forces occupy Brussels.
1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
1920 – The National Football League (NFL) is founded.
1920 – The first commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), begins operations in Detroit, Michigan.
1926 – Japan's broadcasting company Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) is founded.
1938 – Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career Grand Slam, a record in baseball that still stands.
1940 – Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded in Mexico City by an assassin's ice–ax. He will die the next day.
1940 – Winston Churchill makes a famous speech containing the following quote: Never was so much owed by so many to so few.
1944 – World War II: The Battle of Romania begins with a Soviet offensive.
1950 – Korean War: The 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 independence.
1962 – The NS Savannah, the world's first nuclear–powered civilian ship, starts her first voyage.
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.
1980 – Reinhold Messner reaches the top of Mount Everest, both without oxygen, and on his own.
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.
1988 – An earthquake in India and Nepal kills 1,450 people.
1988 – Iran–Iraq War: A ceasefire is agreed to end eight years of war.
1989 – The O–Bahn busway opens in Adelaide, South Australia, as the world's longest guided busway.
1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the Thames in London, killing 51 people.
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 that deposed President Mikhail Gorbachev.
1991 – Estonia separates from the Soviet Union.
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.
1995 – The Hindu temple in Neasden, London, UK, is opened. At the time of its opening, it is the largest Hindu temple outside India.
1996 – Russian soldiers surround Grozny, Chechnya.
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 – 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.

From 2001

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.
2004 – Talk show host Regis Philbin breaks the record for Most Hours on Camera, with 15,188.
2008 – A Spanair plane, due to travel from Madrid to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Madrid Barajas Airport, killing 146 people, with 8 dying later. 18 survive.
2009 – Abdelbaset al–Megrahi, the only person to have been convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, who is suffering from prostate cancer, is released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds, returning to his native Libya. He dies on May 20, 2012.
2014 – A series of landslides in Hiroshima Prefecture kills 72 people, after a month's worth of rain fell in one day.
2018 – Then–15–year–old Greta Thunberg protests outside the Swedish parliament over politicians' lack of action on climate change, starting what would become a worldwide movement of school strikes.
2019 – Giuseppe Conte announces his resignation as Prime Minister of Italy over his coalition partner and League party leader Matteo Salvini's calls for an early election.

Births

Up to 1900

1085 – Boleslaw III Wrymouth, Duke of Poland (d. 1138)
1517 – Antoine Perrenot de Granville, French cardinal (d. 1586)
1561 – Jacopo Peri, Italian composer (d. 1633)
1613 – Elisabeth Sophie of Mecklenburg, German poet and composer (d. 1676)
1625 – Thomas Corneille, French playwright (d. 1709)
1710 – Thomas Simpson, English mathematician (d. 1761)
1719 – Christian Mayer, Czech astronomer (d. 1783)
1720 – Bernard de Bury, French musician and court composer (d. 1785)
1761 – José, Prince of Brazil, Portuguese royal (d. 1788)
1777 – Francis I of the Two Sicilies (d. 1830)
1778 – Bernardo O'Higgins, Chilean revolutionary (d. 1842)
1779 – Jöns Jakob Berzelius, Swedish chemist (d. 1848)
1786 – José Joaquín Prieto Vial, President of Chile (d. 1854)
1792 – Jacques Le Roy de Saint Arnauld, French statesman (d. 1854)
1799 – Heinrich von Gagern, German politician (d. 1880)
1827 – Josef Strauss, Austrian architect, inventor and composer (d. 1870)
1831 – Eduard Suess, Austrian geologist and politician (d. 1914)
1833 – Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (d. 1901)
1843 – Edward Lee Greene, American botanist (d. 1915)
1844 – Mutsu Munemitsu, Japanese politician (d. 1897)
1845 – Albert Chmielowski, Polish saint (d. 1916)
1847 – Boleslaw Prus, Polish writer and publicist (d. 1912)
1860 – Raymond Poincaré, President of France and four–times Prime Minister of France (d. 1934)
1862 – Jesse Carleton, American golfer (d. 1921)
1864 – Ion I. C. Bratianu, Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1927)
1868 – Ellen Roosevelt, American tennis player (d. 1954)
1873 – Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen, Finnish architect (d. 1950)
1881 – Edgar Guest, English poet (d. 1959)
1881 – Aleksander Hellat, Estonian politician (d. 1943)
1882 – Ricardo Joaquin Alfaro Jovane, President of Panama (d. 1971)
1883 – Robert Lehr, German politician (d. 1956)
1884 – Forrest C. Donnell, 40th Governor of Missouri (d. 1980)
1885 – Dino Campana, Italian poet (d. 1932)
1886 – Paul Tillich, German–American theologian (d. 1965)
1888 – Ton Duc Thang, President of North Vietnam (d. 1980)
1890 – H. P. Lovecraft, American writer (d. 1937)
1898 – Vilhelm Moberg, Swedish writer (d. 1973)
1900 – Rita Montaner, Cuban singer and actress (d. 1958)

1901 – 1950

1901 – Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian writer (d. 1968)
1905 – Jack Teagarden, jazz musician (d. 1964)
1905 – Jean Gebser, writer, linguist, and poet (d. 1973)
1906 – Vidrik Bootare, Estonian chess player (d. 1981)
1908 – Al Lopez, American baseball player (d. 2005)
1910 – Eero Saarinen, Finnish architect (d. 1961)
1913 – Roger Wolcott Sperry, American neurobiologist (d. 1994)
1918 – Jacqueline Susann, novelist (d. 1974)
1919 – Walter Bernstein, American screenwriter and film producer
1919 – Thomas G. Morris, American politician (d. 2016)
1920 – George Zuverink, American baseball player (d. 2014)
1921 – Ursula B. Marvin, American planetary geologist (d. 2018)
1923 – Jim Reeves, American country singer (d. 1964)
1927 – Peter Oakley, English blogger (d. 2014)
1928 – Luciano De Crescenzo, Italian writer, actor and director (d. 2019)
1930 – Jan Olszewski, Polish politician (d. 2019)
1931 – Don King, American boxing promoter
1932 – Anthony Ainley, British actor (d. 2004)
1932 – Vasily Aksyonov, Russian writer (d. 2009)
1933 – George J. Mitchell, American politician and businessman
1934 – Armi Kuusela, Finnish model
1935 – Ron Paul, American politician
1936 – Hideki Shirakawa, Japanese chemist, Nobel Prize, laureate
1937 – Stelvio Cipriani, Italian composer (d. 2018)
1937 – Andrei Konchalovsky, Russian movie director
1937 – Jim Bowen, English comedian and television personality (d. 2018)
1937 – Sky Saxon, American singer–songwriter and musician (d. 2009)
1939 – Javier Usabiaga Arroyo, Mexican businessman and politician (d. 2018)
1939 – Fernando Poe, Jr., Filipino movie actor and politician (d. 2004)
1940 – Rubén Hinojosa, American politician
1940 – Ronnie McKinnon, Scottish footballer
1941 – Slobodan Milošević, President of Serbia and Yugoslavia (d. 2006)
1942 – Isaac Hayes, American singer, songwriter, and actor (d. 2008)
1943 – Sylvester McCoy, Scottish actor
1944 – Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (d. 1991)
1944 – José Wilker, Brazilian television director and actor (d. 2014)
1946 – Ralf Hütter, German musician (Kraftwerk)
1946 – Ryszard Czerniawski, Polish lawyer and economist (d. 2019)
1946 – Laurent Fabius, French politician
1946 – Connie Chung, American journalist
1946 – N.R. Narayana Murthy, Indian businessman
1948 – Robert Plant, British singer (Led Zeppelin)
1948 – Kees van Kooten, Dutch footballer (d. 2015)
1949 – Phil Lynott, Irish musician (d. 1986)

1951 – 1975

1951 – Greg Bear, American science fiction writer
1952 – John Hiatt, musician
1954 – Al Roker, American television broadcaster
1954 – Don Stark, American actor
1955 – Danny Murphy, American actor (d. 2014)
1955 – Agnes Chan, singer, professor of education, essayist
1955 – Janet Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, English politician
1956 – Joan Allen, actress
1956 – Roberto Regazzi, Italian violin maker
1958 – Nigel Dodds, Northern Irish politician of the Democratic Unionist Party
1960 – Annabelle Ewing, Scottish politician
1961 – Joe Pasquale, English comedian
1961 – Steve McMahon, English footballer
1962 – James Marsters, American actor
1962 – Sophie Aldred, English voice actress
1963 – Riccardo Ferri, Italian footballer
1964 – Giuseppe Giannini, Italian footballer and coach
1965 – KRS–One (Lawrence Krisna Parker), American rapper
1966 – Dimebag Darrell Abbott, American lead guitar player in Pantera, heavy metal band
1966 – Enrico Letta, former Prime Minister of Italy
1966 – Markus Gandler, Austrian skier
1968 – Yuri Shiratori, Japanese seiyū
1968 – Klas Ingesson, Swedish footballer (d. 2014)
1970 – John Carmack, computer game programmer
1970 – Fred Durst, American singer
1971 – Jonathan Ke Quan, American actor
1971 – David Walliams, British actor and comedian (Little Britain)
1973 – Todd Helton, American baseball player
1974 – Amy Adams, American actress
1974 – Misha Collins, American actor
1974 – Big Moe, American rapper (d. 2007)

From 1976

1976 – Chris Drury, American ice hockey player
1977 – Ivar Ingimarsson, Icelandic footballer
1977 – Stéphane Gillet, Luxembourgish footballer
1977 – Felipe Contepomi, Argentine rugby player
1977 – Manuel Contepomi, Argentine rugby player
1978 – Neco Martínez, Colombian footballer
1979 – Jamie Cullum, British musician
1979 – Cory Sullivan, American baseball player
1981 – Bernard Mendy, French footballer
1982 – Joshua Kennedy, Australian footballer
1983 – Yuri Zhirkov, Russian footballer
1983 – Andrew Garfield, British–American actor
1985 – Alvaro Negredo, Spanish footballer
1985 – Stephen Ward, Irish footballer
1988 – Jerryd Bayless, American basketball player
1990 – Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Dutch swimmer
1990 – Leigh Griffiths, Scottish footballer
1991 – Cory Joseph, American basketball player
1992 – Demi Lovato, American singer and actress
1995 – Liana Liberato, American actress

Deaths

Up to 1900

2 – Lucius Caesar, heir of Augustus Caesar (b. 17 BC)
14 – Agrippa Postumus, Roman son of Marcus Vespasianus Agrippa and Julia the Elder (b. 12 BC)
480 – Leonidas I of Sparta
768 – Eadberht of Northumbria
984 – Pope John XIV
1153 – Bernard of Clairvaux, French theologian (b. 1090)
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. in the 1500s)
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 – Cornelius de Witt, Dutch politician (b. 1623)
1680 – William Bedloe, English informer (b. 1650)
1701 – Charles Sedley, English playwright (b. in the 1600s)
1707 – Nicolas Gigault, French organist and composer (b. 1627)
1773 – Enrique Florez, Spanish historian (b. 1701)
1823 – Pope Pius VII (b. 1740)
1823 – Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, German publisher (b. 1772)
1854 – Shiranui Dakuemon, Japanese sumo wrestler (b. 1801)
1854 – Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, German philosopher (b. 1775)
1887 – Jules Laforgue, French poet (b. 1860)

1901 – 2000

1912 – William Booth, English founder of the Salvation Army (b. 1829)
1914 – Pope Pius X (b. 1835)
1915 – Paul Ehrlich, German doctor, won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, (b. 1854)
1917 – Adolf von Baeyer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1835)
1919 – Greg MacGregor, Scottish cricketer and rugby player (b. 1869)
1930 – Charles Bannerman, Australian cricketer and umpire (b. 1851)
1942 – Istvan Horthy, Hungarian admiral (b. 1904)
1947 – Albert Henderson, Canadian soccer player (b. 1881)
1961 – Percy Williams Bridgman, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1882)
1965 – Jonathan Daniels, American activist (b. 1939)
1979 – Christian Dotremont, Belgian painter and writer (b. 1922)
1980 – Joe Dassin, American singer (b. 1938)
1982 – Ulla Jacobsson, Swedish actress (b. 1929)
1986 – Milton Acorn, Canadian poet (b. 1923)
1993 – Bernard Delfgaauw, Dutch philosopher (b. 1912)
1995 – Hugo Pratt, Italian author and illustrator (b. 1927)
1996 – Rio Reiser, German rock musician (b. 1950)

From 2001

2001 – Sir Fred Hoyle, English astronomer and science fiction writer (b. 1915)
2005 – Thomas Herrion, American football player (b. 1981)
2005 – Krzysztof Raczkowski, Polish drummer (b. 1970)
2006 – Claude Blanchard, French–Canadian singer, comedian and actor (b. 1932)
2006 – Joe Rosenthal, American photographer (b. 1912)
2008 – Hua Guofeng, Chairman of the Chinese Communist party (b. 1921)
2008 – Gene Upshaw, American football player and union leader (b. 1945)
2012 – Phyllis Diller, American actress and comedienne (b. 1917)
2012 – Virginia Dwyer, American actress (b. 1919)
2012 – Dom Mintoff, former Prime Minister of Malta (b. 1916)
2012 – Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia and ex–President of Ethiopia (b. 1955)
2013 – Elmore Leonard, American novelist and screenwriter (b. 1925)
2013 – Ted Post, American director (b. 1919)
2013 – Marian McPartland, British–American jazz pianist (b. 1918)
2014 – B. K. S. Iyengar, Indian yoga teacher and author (b. 1918)
2014 – Boris Dubin, Russian sociologist and translator (b. 1946)
2014 – Anton Buslov, Russian scientist and blogger (b. 1983)
2014 – Sava Stojkov, Serbian painter (b. 1925)
2014 – Edmund Szoka, American cardinal (b. 1927)
2015 – Lev Durov, Russian actor (b. 1931)
2015 – Lina Morgan, Spanish actress and playwright (b. 1937)
2015 – Harry Volkman, American meteorologist (b. 1926)
2017 – Margot Hielscher, German singer and actress (b. 1919)
2017 – Jerry Lewis, American actor and comedian (b. 1926)
2017 – Colin Meads, New Zealand rugby player (b. 1936)
2017 – Nati Mistral, Spanish actress (b. 1928)
2017 – Wilhelm Killmayer, German composer and conductor (b. 1927)
2017 – Gordon M. Williams, Scottish writer (b. 1934)
2018 – John N. Abrams, American general (b. 1946)
2018 – Uri Avnery, Israeli peace activist (b. 1923)
2018 – Jimmy McIlroy, Northern Irish footballer (b. 1931)
2018 – Eddie Willis, American guitarist (b. 1936)
2019 – Rudolf Hundstorfer, Austrian politician (b. 1951)
2019 – John H. McArthur, Canadian–American theorist (b. 1934)
2019 – Larry Siegel, American comedy writer (b. 1925)

Observances

Saint Stephen's Day (Hungary), commemorating the founding of the Kingdom of Hungary in the year 1000
Regaining of Independence (Estonia)
World Mosquito Day