Historical Events on September 20

Events 1 - 200 of 234

• 368 Emperor Valentinianus visits Nijmegen
• 622 Prophet Muhammad arrives in Yathrib (Medina)
• 1066 Battle of Fulford, Yorkshire: Harald III Hardrada of Norway defeats Northern Saxon Earls Edwin and Morcar

• 1258 Salisbury Cathedral in south west England inaugurated
• 1378 Robert de Geneve, "butcher of Cesena" crowned anti-pope Clemens VII

• 1530 Luther advises protestant monarch compromise
• 1565 Spaniards capture Fort Caroline Florida & massacre the French
• 1596 Diego de Montemayor founded the city of Monterrey in New Spain.
• 1602 Spanish held city of Grave surrenders to Maurice of Orange during Eighty Years' War
• 1604 Spanish army under Spinola recaptures Oostende

• 1664 Maryland passes 1st anti-amalgamation law to stop intermarriage of English women & black men
• 1674 2nd West Indies Company forms
• 1688 French troops occupies Palts
• 1697 Peace of Saki (ends 9 years war)
• 1737 Runner Edward Marshall completes his journey in the Walking Purchase forcing the cession of 1.2 million acres (4,860 km²) of Lenape-Delaware tribal land to the Pennsylvania Colony

• 1787 William V Prince of Orange returns to The Hague
• 1792 French defeat Prussians at Valmy
• 1793 British troops under Major-general Williamson lands on (French) Haiti
• 1814 "Star Spangled Banner" published as a song, lyrics by Francis Scott Key, tune by John Stafford Smith
• 1830 1st Negro Convention of Free Men agree to boycott slave-produced goods

• 1835 Farroupilha's Revolution begins in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
• 1839 1st railroad in Netherland opens (Amsterdam-Haarlem)
• 1848 The American Association for the Advancement of Science is created.
• 1850 Slave trade abolished in DC, but slavery allowed to continue

• 1859 George Simpson patents electric range

• 1861 Battle of Lexington, MI-captured by Union
• 1863 Battle of Shepardstown VA

• 1870 Capture of Rome by Italian army, Pope Pius IX surrenders to King Victor Emmanuel which unifies Italy and ends 1,116 year reign of Papal States

• 1871 Bishop John Coleridge Patteson martyred on the island of Nukapu, a Polynesian outlier island now in the Temotu province of the Solomon Islands. He was the first bishop of Melanesia.
• 1873 Panic sweeps NY Stock Exchange (railroad bond default/bank failure) NY shut banks for 10 days due to a bank scandal
• 1876 Ottawa Football Club forms
• 1877 Chase National Bank opens in NYC (later merges into Chase Manhattan)

• 1884 6.2 mile Arlberg railroad tunnel completed in Austria
• 1884 Equal Rights Party nominates female candidates for US President and Vice President
• 1893 The first gasoline-powered car debuts in Springfield, Massachusetts
• 1902 Chicago White Sox pitcher Jimmy 'Nixey' Callahan no-hits Detroit Tigers, 3-0
• 1904 George Ade's "College Widow," premieres in NYC

• 1905 Cleveland makes AL record 7 errors in an inning
• 1906 Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania is launched at the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Newcastle, England.
• 1907 Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Nick Maddox no-hits Brooklyn Superbas, 2-1 at Exposition Park, Pittsburgh
• 1908 Chicago White Sox Frank Smith 2nd no-hitter, beats Philadelphia 1-0
• 1909 The British Parliament passes the South Africa Act; it calls for union of Cape Colony, Natal, Orange River Colony, and Transvaal; and both English and Dutch as official languages
• 1911 Yanks set team record 12 errors in a double header
• 1914 John Redmond urges Irish Volunteers to enlist in the British Army
• 1917 British assault on Polygon Forest, France
• 1917 Paraguay becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
• 1918 Royal Dutch Blast furnace & Steel factory opens in Hague
• 1919 Booth Tarkington's play "Clarence," premieres in NYC

• 1920 Foundation of the Spanish Legion.

• 1922 Goodman & Atteridge's musical "Passing Show," opens at Winter Garden Theatre, NYC

• 1924 Carl Mays is 1st pitcher to win 20 games seasons for 3 different teams
• 1924 Cub's Grover Cleveland Alexander beats NY Giants to win 300th game

• 1930 Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is formed by Archbishop Mar Ivanios.

• 1932 Chicago Cubs clinch the NL pennant
• 1932 Dutch South Seas rebaptized in IJsselmeer

• 1933 Pittsburgh Steelers (as Pirates) play 1st NFL game, lose 23-2
• 1935 Pitts Crawfords beat NY Cubans to win Negro NL Championship, 3-0
• 1938 Emlyn Williams' semi-autobiographical comedic play "Corn is Green," premieres in London; runs for 600 performances
• 1939 British navy captures German U-27 boat

• 1942 Gunther Hagg becomes world champ of all records from 1500m to 5000m
• 1943 Liberator bomber sinks U-338
• 1944 Nijmegen is liberated from German occupation
• 1944 Polish forces liberate Terneuzen in the Netherlands
• 1945 German rocket engineers begin work in US
• 1946 Churchill argues for a 'United States of Europe'
• 1948 Mexican Baseball league disbanded
• 1949 Dutch Guilder devalued 30.3%
• 1949 Top American tennis player Pancho Gonzales turns professional
• 1951 1st North Pole jet crossing
• 1951 MLB owners elect National League President Ford Frick as 3rd Baseball Commissioner for a 7-year term at a then massive $65,000 per annum
• 1951 Swiss males votes against female suffrage
• 1952 KPTV TV channel 12 in Portland, OR (IND) begins broadcasting

• 1954 1st FORTRAN computer program run
• 1954 1st National People's Congress adopts Chinese constitution

• 1954 KETC TV channel 9 in Saint Louis, MO (PBS) begins broadcasting
• 1954 New Zealand's Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents reports just ten days after concluding hearings.

• 1955 Willie Mays is 7th player to reach 50 HRs in a season

• 1958 Ferhat Abbas forms Algerian government in exile (Cairo)
• 1958 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
• 1960 UN General Assembly admit 13 African countries & Cyprus (96 nations)
• 1960 WFSU TV channel 11 in Tallahassee, FL (PBS) begins broadcasting

• 1961 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
• 1962 Ahmed Ben Bella is elected Prime Minister of Algeria in their first election following independence
• 1962 Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett refuses to admit an African-American, James Meredith, to Mississippi University

• 1964 20th America's Cup yachting: Eric Ridder skippered Constellation beats English challenger Sovereign for a 4-0 American series sweep off Newport, RI

• 1964 The Beatles close out their first North American tour returning to New York City, for a benefit concert titled "An Evening With The Beatles" at the Paramount Theatre; the show was for the United Cerebral Palsy of NYC charity, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé were also on the bill
• 1965 WXXW (now WYCC) TV channel 20 in Chicago, IL (PBS) begins broadcasting
• 1966 US Surveyor B launched toward Moon; crashed Sept 23
• 1967 Benin separates from Nigeria

• 1967 Hurricane Beulah hits Texas-Mexican border, kills 38
• 1967 WCAE TV channel 50 in St John, IN (PBS) begins broadcasting
• 1967 WCIX TV channel 6 in Miami, FL (CBS) begins broadcasting

• 1969 MLB Pittsburgh Pirate Bob Moose no-hits NY Mets, 4-0
• 1969 Virtual 'cartoon' band Archies' single "Sugar Sugar" hits #1

• 1970 Soviet spcecraft Luna 16 lands on Moon's Mare Fecunditatis, drills core sample
• 1972 Libya acquires a 50 percent interest in two ENI oil concessions

• 1972 The Social Democratic and Labour Party issues a document entitled "Towards a New Ireland", proposing that the British and Irish governments should have joint sovereignty over Northern Ireland

• 1973 Willie Mays announces retirement at end of 1973 season

• 1975 Gary Sentman draws a record 176 lb longbow to a maximum 28½" draw
• 1976 "The Captain and Tennille" television musical-variety show debuts in US (ABC)

• 1976 Metroliner official opens in Brussels

• 1977 Russell Means addresses the UNHCR in Geneva: criticizes the United States, describing Native Americans as "people who live in the belly of the monster"
• 1977 Russian musical review "Estrada" opens a limited run at Majestic Theater, NYC, for 7 performances
• 1977 Vietnam & Djibouti ask for membership in UN
• 1978 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
• 1978 Yamada Mumon Roshi visits Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach Germany
• 1979 Assassination of French left-wing militant Pierre Goldman.

• 1979 Lee Iacocca is elected president of the Chrysler Corporation
• 1979 NASA launches HEAO 3
• 1979 The Punjab wing of the Unity Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India (Marxist-Leninist) formally splits and constitutes a parallel UCCRI(ML).

• 1980 Bronze plaque dedicated to memory of catcher Thurman Munson unveiled at Yankee Stadium: Munson died in plane crash in 1979

• 1981 Joe Danelo kicks then NY Giant record 55 yard field goal
• 1982 Jalaluddin takes a one-day hat-trick Pakistan v Australia
• 1983 3,112 turn out to see Pirates play NY Mets at Shea Stadium
• 1983 Cryptographic Communications System & Method (RSA) patented

• 1984 Cubs break 2 million in home attendance for 1st time
• 1984 Suicide car bomb attacks US Embassy annex in Beirut, kills 23
• 1985 Curtis Strong is convicted for selling cocaine to pro baseball players
• 1985 Walt Disney World's 200-millionth guest
• 1986 Wichita State Shockers blow a 35-3 lead; lose 36-35 to Morehead State

• 1987 San Francisco wide receiver Dwight Clark's NFL record streak of 105 consecutive games with a reception ends in 49ers 27-26 victory in Cincinnati
• 1988 "Loving Proof" second studio album by Ricky Van Shelton is released (Billboard Song of the Year 1989)

• 1988 Detroit first baseman Darrell Evans hits home run #18 in Tigers' 4-3 loss to Cleveland Indians; Evans' 400th MLB career HR

• 1989 USAir overshoots runway at LaGuardia Airport in NYC, 2 people die
• 1990 Both East and West Germany ratify reunification
• 1990 South Ossetia declares its independence from Georgia
• 1990 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1991 Lion's Terry Taylor reinstated after 1 year drug related suspension

• 1992 Phils' Mickey Moradini makes an unassisted triple play
• 1992 Space shuttle STS-47 (Endeavour 2) lands
• 1994 Space shuttle STS-64 (Discovery 20), lands
• 1995 Cincinnati Reds becomes 1st team to clinch NL Central

• 1997 Yanks clinch 37th appearance in post season, 3rd consecutive

• 2000 Patent on RSA cryptograph algorithm ends
• 2000 The Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA) attacks British MI6 Secret Intelligence Service building, using a Russian-built Mark 22 anti-tank missile

• 2002 The Kolka-Karmadon rock and ice slide starts in North Ossetia–Alania, Russia
• 2003 A referendum is held in Latvia to decide the country's accession to the European Union
• 2003 Maldives civil unrest: the death of prisoner Hassan Evan Naseem sparks a day of rioting in Malé

• 2010 The National Bureau of Economic Research state today that the US left the recession in June 2009, with managing director Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute saying GDP recovered to 70% of the pre-recession level

• 2011 The United States ends its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.
• 2012 14 people are killed in a cafe suicide bombing in Somalia
• 2012 50 people are killed and dozens injured after a gas station is bombed by the Syrian Army in Ain Issa

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