November 20

Events

• 1272 - Following Henry III of England's death on November 16, his son Prince Edward becomes King of England.
• 1468 - Joanot Martorell's book Tirant lo Blanch is published for the first time.
• 1700 - Great Northern War: Battle of Narva - King Charles XII of Sweden defeats the army of Tsar Peter the Great at Narva.
• 1789 - New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
• 1820 - An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this story).
• 1910 - Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero denounces President Porfirio Díaz, declares himself president, and calls for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico.
• 1917 - World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins - British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are soon beat back.
• 1917 - Ukraine is declared a republic.
• 1940 - World War II: Hungary, Romania and Slovakia join the Axis Powers.
• 1943 - World War II: Battle of Tarawa begins - United States Marines land on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands and take heavy fire from Japanese shore guns.
• 1945 - Nuremberg Trials begin: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals of World War II start at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.
• 1947 - Princess Elizabeth marries Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in London.
• 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, US President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Carribean nation.
• 1966 - "Cabaret" opens at the Imperial Theatre, New York
• 1969 - Vietnam War: The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
• 1983 - An estimated 100 million people watch the controversial made-for-television movie The Day After, depicting the start of a nuclear war.
• 1989 - Velvet Revolution: The number of peaceful protestors assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
• 1992 - In England, a fire breaks out in the Private Chapel room of Windsor Castle, rages for 15 hours, and seriously damages the northwest side of the building (an investigation found that the fire was ignited after a spotlight came into contact with a curtain over an extended period).
• 1993 - Savings and Loan scandal: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
• 1994 - The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war (in 1995 localized fighting resumed).
• 1998 - A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regards to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
• 1999 - The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.
• 2001 - In Washington, DC, US President George W. Bush dedicates the United States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday.
• 2003- Several bombs are detonated in Istanbul, Turkey destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Holdings and the British consulate.
• 2003- Michael Jackson is arrested by police on charges of child molestation, a charge that can carry an 8 year jail term.

Births

• 1602 - Otto von Guericke, German physicist, inventor (d. 1686)
• 1625 - Paulus Potter, painter (d. 1654)
• 1669 - Susannah Annesley, mother of Methodist founders John and Charles Wesley (d. 1742)
• 1841 - Wilfrid Laurier, seventh Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1919)
• 1858 - Selma Lagerlöf, author and recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature 1909 (d. 1940)
• 1866 - Kenesaw Mountain Landis, judge and first baseball commissioner (d. 1944)
• 1879 - Albert S. Reitz, American Baptist evangelist
• 1884 - Norman Thomas, U.S. social reformer (d. 1968)
• 1889 - Edwin Hubble, astronomer (d. 1953)
• 1903 - Alexandra Danilova, Russian ballerina (d. 1997)
• 1908 - Alastair Cooke, television host
• 1912 - Otto von Habsburg, scion of the Austrian imperial family
• 1913 - Judy Canova, actress (d. 1983)
• 1914 - Emilio Pucci, fashion designer (d. 1992)
• 1917 - Robert Byrd, U.S. politician
• 1919 - Evelyn Keyes, actress
• 1921 - Jim Garrison, assassination detective, author, politician (d. 1992)
• 1923 - Nadine Gordimer, author and recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature 1992
• 1924 - Benoît Mandelbrot, mathematician
• 1925 - Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. politician (d. 1968)
• 1927 - Estelle Parsons, actress
• 1932 - Richard Dawson, actor, game show host
• 1936 - Don DeLillo, U.S. author
• 1937 - René Kollo, tenor
• 1939 - Dick Smothers, comedian, half of the Smothers Brothers
• 1946 - Duane Allman, musician (d. 1971)
• 1947 - Joe Walsh, musician
• 1956 - Bo Derek, actress
• 1959 - Sean Young, actress
• 1960 - Cathy Moriarty, actress
• 1970 - Delia Gonzalez, world champion boxer

Deaths

• 1894 - Anton Rubinstein, pianist and composer
• 1910 - Leo Tolstoy, novelist
• 1925 - Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom
• 1936 - José Antonio Primo de Rivera, activist, politician
• 1936 - Buenaventura Durruti, anarchist
• 1973 - Allan Sherman, comedian
• 1975 - Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain
• 1993 - Emile Ardolino, director, producer

Holidays and Observances

• Bahá'í Faith: Holy Day, Birth of Bahá'u'llah
• Mexico: Anniversary of the Revolution (1910)

See Also

November 19 - November 21 - October 20 - December 20 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Referenced By