June 20

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.
• 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

• 1634 - Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy († 1675)
• 1756 - Joseph Martin Kraus, composer
• 1771 - Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, philanthropist, entrepreneur († 1820)
• 1797 - Sophie (Frémiet) Rude, French artist († 1867)
• 1819 - Jacques Offenbach, composer (+ 1880)
• 1887 - Kurt Schwitters, painter (Dadaist), writer († 1948)
• 1899 - Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance in WW II
• 1905 - Lillian Hellman, playwright († 1984)
• 1909 - Errol Flynn, actor († 1959)
• 1924 - Chet Atkins, country guitar player
• 1931 - Martin Landau, actor
• 1931 - Olympia Dukakis, actress
• 1936 - Danny Aiello, actor
• 1940 - John Mahoney, actor
• 1940 - Eugen Drewermann, theologian
• 1941 - Ilse Ritter, actress
• 1941 - Ulf Merbold, physicist and astronaut
• 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
• 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

June 19 - June 21 - May 20 - July 20 -- listing of all days

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Referenced By