On this day in History - Aug 20

0636 - 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.
0917 - Battle of Anchialus: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria invades Thrace and drives the Byzantines out.
0984 - Pope John XIV dies
1153 - São Bernardo morre no mosteiro cistercense de Claraval, de que era abade desde 1115.
1561 - Jacopo Peri, was born (d. 1633). Italian composer
1625 - Thomas Corneille was born (d. 1709). French dramatist
1632 - Louis Bourdaloue was born (d. 1704). French Jesuit preacher.
1639 - Martin Opitz von Boberfeld dies (b. 1597). German poet.
1644 - (P.) Manuel Bernardes was born (d. 1710). Portuguese writer.
1611 - Tomás Luis de Victoria dies. Spanish composer
1672 - Johan de Witt dies (b. 1625). Dutch politician.
1680 - William Bedloe dies (b. 1650). English informer.
1701 - Charles Sedley dies. English playwright
1707 - Nicolas Gigault dies (b. 1627). French organist and composer.
1778 - Bernardo O'Higgins (Ojíguins) dies. Leader of Chile's Independence.
1779 - Jöns Jakob Berzelius was born (d. 1848). Chemist
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.
1817 - João Manuel Pereira da Silva was born. Brazilian writer and historian.
1823 - Pope Pius VII dies.
1830 - Luis de Eguílaz was born. Spanish writer.
1833 - Nat Turner leads his revolt against the Southern plantation owners of Southampton County, Virginia
1833 - Benjamin Harrison was born (d. 1901). 23rd President of the United States
1860 - Raymond Poincaré was born. Presidente of France (1913-1920)
1881 - Edgar Guest was born (d. 1959). English poet
1882 - Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.
1885 - Matias de Lima was born. Portuguese poet.
1887 - Jules Laforgue dies (b. 1860). French poet,
1889 - Cora Carolina ( Ana Lins dos Guimarães Peixoto) was born (d. 1985), Brazilian writer and poet.
1890 - H. P. Lovecraft was born (d. 1937). American writer (At the Mountains of Madness)
1900 - Japan's primary school law is amended to provide for four years of mandatory schooling.
1901 - Salvatore Quasimodo was born (d. 1968)., Italian writer
1905 - Jack Teagarden was born (d. 1964). Jazz musician
1905 - Jean Gebser was born (d. 1973). Author, linguist, and poet
1905 - Adolphe William Bouguereau dies. French painter.
1908 - Al Lopez was born. Baseball player and manager
1910 - Eero Saarinen was born (d. 1961). Architect
1912 - William Booth dies (b. 1829). Founder and first general of The Salvation Army
1913 - Roger Wolcott Sperry was born (d. 17 Apr 1994). American psycologist and biologist. 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine laureate
1914 - World War I: German forces occupy Brussels.
1914 - Pope Pius X (1903 -1914) dies (b. 1835)
1915 - Paul Ehrlich dies (b. 1854). German biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate in 1908
1917 - Adolf von Baeyer dies (b. 1835). German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate in 1905
1918 - Jacqueline Susann was born (d. 1974). Novelist.
1920 - The first commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), begins operations in Detroit, Michigan.
1923 - Jim Reeves was born (d. 1964). Country singer
1926 - Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) is established.
1931 - Don King was born. Boxing promoter
1932 - Anthony Ainley was born (d. 2004). British actor.
1934 - Alemania: Adolf Hitler asume la presidencia.
1935 - Ron Paul was born. American politician
1936 - Hideki Shirakawa was born. Japanese chemist, Nobel Prize, laureate
1940 - Rubén Hinojosa was born. American politician
1940 - Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded in Mexico City by an assassin's ice-ax. He will die the next day.
1941 - Slobodan Milošević was born. President of Serbia and Yugoslabia
1941 - Robin Oakley was born. British journalist
1942 - Isaac Hayes was born. Singer, songwriter, and actor
1944 - Rajiv Gandhi was born (d. 1991). Prime Minister of India
1945 - José Wilker was born. Brazilian actor.
1946 - Connie Chung was born. Journalist
1946 - N.R. Narayana Murthy was born. Businessman
1948 - Robert Plant was born. Singer.
1951 - Greg Bear was born. Science fiction author
1952 - John Hiatt was born. Musician
1954 - Al Roker was born. Television broadcaster
1955 - Agnes Chan was born. Singer, professor of education, essayist
1955 - In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria, raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.
1956 - Joan Allen was born. American actress
1960 - Senegal breaks from the Mali federation, declaring independence.
1961 - Percy Williams Bridgman dies (b. 1882). American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1962 - James Marsters was born. Canadian actor
1965 - KRS-One (Lawrence Krisna Parker) was born. Rapper
1966 - Dimebag Darrell was born. American guitarist (Pantera/Damageplan)
1968 - Yuri Shiratori was born. Seiyū
1968 - 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to end the "Prague Spring" of political liberalization.
1970 - John Carmack was born. Computer game programmer
1971 - Fred Durst was born. American singer (Limp Bizkit)
1972 - Juan Manuel Gálvez. President of Honduras (1949-1954)
1973 - Todd Helton was born. Baseball player
1974 - Maxim Vengerov was born, Russian violinist.
1975 - Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.
1977 - Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
1982 - Lebanese Civil War: A multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon.
1984 - Mirai Moriyama was born. Japanese actor.
1986 - In Edmond, Oklahoma, US Postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.
1986 - Milton Acorn dies (b. 1923). Canadian poet.
1988 - Peru becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
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.
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 - Hugo Pratt dies. Italian cartoonist (Corto Maltese)
1996 - Morre Abílio Duarte, primeiro presidente do Parlamento de Cabo Verde.
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.
1998 - António Assunção dies. Portuguese actor.
1999 - Abertura dos Mundiais de Atletismo em Sevilha
2001 - Sir Fred Hoyle dies (b. 1915). English astronomer and science fiction writer
2004 - Talk show host Regis Philbin breaks the record for Most Hours on Camera, with 15,188.
Bahá'í Faith - Feast of Asmá (Names) - First day of the ninth month of the Bahá'í Calendar
St. Stephen's day in Hungary, the main national holiday