Wikipedia: June 20

June 20
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

June 20 is the 171st day of the year (172nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 194 days remaining.

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

See Also:

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

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