On this day in History - Oct. 20

• 0460 - Aelia Eudocia dies. Byzantine Empress.
• 1139 - Henry X, Duke of Bavaria dies.
• 1463 - Alessandro Achillini was born (d. 1512). Italian philosopher.
• 1469 - Guru Nanak Dev was born (d. 1539). First Sikh Guru.
• 1496 - Claude, Duke of Guise was born (d. 1550). French soldier.
• 1570 - João de Barros dies (b. 1496). Portuguese historian (Décadas da Ásia).
• 1616 - Thomas Bartholin was born (d. 1680). Danish physician, mathematician, and theologian.
• 1620 - Aelbert Cuyp was born (d. 1691). Dutch painter.
• 1631 - Michael Maestlin dies (b. 1550). German astronomer and mathematician.
• 1632 - Sir Christopher Wren was born (d. 1723). English architect, astronomer, mathematician. He was a founder of the Royal Society (president 1680–1682)
• 1640 - John Ball dies (b. 1585). English Puritan clergyman.
• 1648 - American Indian Battle of Tippycart.
• 1652 - Antonio Coello dies (b. 1611). Spanish writer.
• 1656 - Nicolas de Largillière was born (d. 1746). French painter.
• 1660 - Robert Bertie, 1st Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven was born (d. 1723). English statesman
• 1677 - Stanislaus I Leszczyński was born (d. 1766). King of Poland.
• 1682 - Morre Frei António das Chagas. Pregador e escritor português.
• 1700 - Charlotte Aglaé of Orléans was born (d. 1761). Duchess of Modena.
• 1711 - Timothy Ruggles was born (d. 1795). American-born Tory politician.
• 1713 - Archibald Pitcairne dies (b. 1652). Scottish physician.
• 1719 - Gottfried Achenwall was born (d. 1772). German statistician.
• 1740 - Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor dies (b. 1685).
• 1740 - Maria Theresa takes the throne of Austria. France, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony refuse to honour the Pragmatic Sanction and the War of the Austrian Succession begins.
• 1752 - Arrival in Philadelphia of the Ship Duke of Wirtemberg, Daniel Montpelier, Commander, from Rotterdam (Holland), last from Cowes (England), with 133 immigrants including Johann Conrad Hesser.
• 1759 - Chauncey Goodrich was born (d. 1815). U.S. Senator from Connecticut.
• 1780 - Pauline Bonaparte was born (d. 1825). Princess Borghese, sister of Napoleon Bonaparte.
• 1781 - Patent of Tolerance, providing limited freedom of worship, was approved in Habsburg Monarchy.
• 1784 - Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston was born (d. 1865). Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• 1785 - George Ormerod was born (d. 1873). English historian and antiquarian.
• 1803 - United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase.
• 1808 - Karl Andree was born (d. 1875). German geographer.
• 1818 - The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the US-Canada border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.
• 1819 - The Báb was born (d. 1850). Persian founder of the Bábí Faith.
• 1819 - Carl Mikuli was born (d. 1897). Polish pianist.
• 1822 - Thomas Hughes was born (d. 1896). English novelist.
• 1824 - William H. Seward and Frances Adeline Miller Seward wed.
• 1827 - Battle of Navarino - a combined Turkish and Egyptian armada is destroyed by an allied British, French, and Russian naval force in the port of Navarino in Pylos, Greece. The most important result of this battle is the end of the Greek Liberation War and the affirmation of independence of modern Greece.
• 1832 - Anton Romako was born (d. 8 Mar 1889). Austrian painter.
• 1832 - Constantin Lipsius was born (d. 1894). German architect.
• 1842 - Grace Darling dies (b. 1815). English heroine.
• 1854 - Arthur Rimbaud was born (d. 1891). French poet.
• 1858 - John Burns was born (d. 1943). English politician.
• 1859 - John Dewey was born (d. 1952). American philosopher.
• 1863 - William Henry Young was born in London (d. 7 Jul 1942). Mathematician.
• 1864 - James F. Hinkle was born (d. 1951). American politician, sixth Governor of New Mexico.
• 1865 - Champ Ferguson dies. Confederate guerilla.
• 1874 - Charles Ives was born (d. 1954). American composer.
• 1878 - Arthur Scherbius was born (d. 1929). German electrical engineer who patented an invention for a mechanical cipher machine, later sold as the Enigma machine.
• 1882 - Bela Lugosi was born (d. 1956). Hungarian-born actor.
• 1883 - Peru and Chile signed the Treaty of Ancón, by which the Tarapacá province was ceded to the latter, bringing an end to Peru's involvement in the War of the Pacific.
• 1889 - Margaret Dumont was born (d. 1965). American actress.
• 1890 - Jelly Roll Morton was born (d. 1941). American composer.
• 1890 - Sir Richard Burton dies (b. 1821). British explorer and writer.
• 1891 - James Chadwick was born (d. 1974). English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• 1891 - Jomo Kenyatta was born (d. 1978). President of Kenya.
• 1893 - Charley Chase was born (d. 1940). American comedian.
• 1894 - Olive Thomas was born (d. 1920). American actress.
• 1895 - Rex Ingram was born (d. 1969). American actor.
• 1897 - Crown Prince Eun of Korea was born (d. 1970).
• 1900 - Wayne Morse was born (d. 1974). U.S. Senator from Oregon.
• 1900 - Naim Frashëri dies (b. 1846). Albanian poet.
• 1901 - Alberto Giacometti was born. Swiss painter and sculptor.
• 1904 - Anna Neagle was born (d. 1986). English actress.
• 1904 - Tommy Clement Douglas was born (d. 1986). Canadian politician.
• 1904 - José Luciano de Castro Pereira Corte-Real assume o cargo de primeiro-ministro de Portugal.
• 1905 - Frederic Dannay (Ellery Queen) was born (d. 1982). American writer.
• 1906 - Club Atlético Central Córdoba (Argentina) is founded.
• 1907 - Arlene Francis was born (d. 2001). American television personality.
• 1907 - Said Pasha Kurd dies (b. 1834). Kurdish statesman.
• 1909 - Sugiyama Yasushi was born (d. 1993). Japanese painter.
• 1910 - The hull of the RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic, is launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland.
• 1910 - Soccer team KFC forms in Alkmaar, Netherland.
• 1910 - David B. Hill dies (b. 1843). Governor of New York.
• 1913 - Grandpa Jones was born (d. 1998). American banjo player and singer.
• 1914 - Mario Luzi was born (d. 28 Feb 2005). Italian poet and literary critic. He emerged from the Hermetic movementto become one of the most notable poets of the 20th century
• 1914 - Fayard Nicholas was born (d. 2006). American dancer.
• 1917 - Jean-Pierre Melville was born (d. 1973). French director.
• 1918 - Robert Lochner was born (d. 2003). German journalist.
• 1919 - Tracy Hall was born (d. 2008). American inventor.
• 1920 - Max Bruch dies (b. 1838). German composer.
• 1922 - John Anderson was born (d. 1992). American actor.
• 1923 - Robert Craft was born. American conductor.
• 1925 - Art Buchwald was born. American newspaper columnist.
• 1925 - Roger Hanin was born. French actor.
• 1925 - Tom Dowd was born (d. 2002). American recording engineer.
• 1926 - Eugene Debs dies (b. 1855). American labor leader and Socialist presidential candidate.
• 1928 - Joyce Brothers was born. American psychologist and television personality.
• 1928 - Daniel Nathans was born (d. 26. Nov. 1999). American microbiologist who awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (shared with Werner Arber and Hamilton O. Smith ) "for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics".
• 1929 - José Batlle y Ordóñez dies. President of Uruguay (1903-1907 and 1911-1915).
• 1931 - Mickey Mantle was born (d. 1995). Baseball player.
• 1931 - Richard Caliguiri was born (d. 1988). American politician.
• 1932 - Rosey Brown was born (d. 2004). American football player.
• 1932 - William Christopher was born. American actor (M*A*S*H).
• 1933 - Abelardo Montalvo assume a presidência do Equador.
• 1934 - Eddie Harris was born (d. 1996). American jazz saxophonist.
• 1934 - Michiko was born. Empress of Japan.
• 1935 - The Long March ends. Just over a year after the start of the Long March, Mao Zedong arrives in Hanoi in northwest China with 8000 survivors, and sets up Chinese Communist headquarters. In October of 1934, the Communist leader Mao and over 100,000 of his followers began an epic flight from the vastly superior Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. In a retreat known as the Long March, Mao's forces battled their way across 6,000 miles of territory, before finally reaching safety in Hanoi/ Termina a Longa Marcha, de mais de 9.000 quilómetros, realizada pelo Exército do Partido Comunista Chinês, dirigido por Mao-Tse-Tung, em fuga do exército de Chiang Kai-shek.
• 1935 - Jerry Orbach was born (d. 2004). American actor.
• 1935 - Arthur Henderson dies (b. 1863). Scottish politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 1936 - Anne Sullivan dies (b. 1866). American teacher.
• 1937 - Juan Marichal was born. Dominican baseball player.
• 1937 - Wanda Jackson was born. American rock and rockabilly singer.
• 1938 - Iain Macmillan was born (d. 2006). Abbey Road photographer.
• 1940 - Kathy Kirby was born. British singer.
• 1940 - Robert Pinsky was born. American poet and Poet Laureate of the United States.
• 1941 - World War II: Thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in German-occupied Serbia are killed in the Kragujevac massacre.
• 1942 - Earl Hindman was born (d. 2003). American actor.
• 1942 - Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard was born in Magdeburg (d. 1995) German biologist who awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with the Americans Edward B. Lewis and Eric F. Wieschaus) for their discoveries concerning "the genetic control of early embryonic development".
• 1943 - Dunja Vejzovic was born. Croatian soprano.
• 1944 - Guatemala Revolution: The overthrow of Jorge Ubico y Castaneda.
• 1944 - Liquid natural gas leaks from storange tanks in Cleveland, then explodes; the explosion and resulting fire level 30 blocks and kill 130.
• 1944 - The Soviet army and Yugoslav Partisans liberate Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia
• 1944 - General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he commands an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.
• 1944 - David Mancuso was born. American disc jockey.
• 1945 - Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon form the Arab League to present a unified front against the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
• 1945 - Calane da Silva was born in Maputo. Mozambican journalist and writer.
• 1946 - Elfriede Jelinek was born. Austrian writer, laureate of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power". She is best known for her 1983 autobiographical novel Die Klavierspielerin.
• 1946 - Anne Murray was born in Springhill Nova Scotia. Country singer, Snowbird.
• 1946 - Lewis Grizzard was born (d. 1994). American writer and humorist.
• 1946 - Lucien Van Impe was born. Belgian cyclist.
• 1947 - The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.
• 1949 - Valeri Borzov was born. Ukrainian athlete.
• 1950 - Tom Petty was born. American musician.
• 1951 - The "Johnny Bright Incident" occurred in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
• 1951 - Claudio Ranieri was born. Italian football player and manager.
• 1951 - Leif Pagrotsky was born. Swedish politician.
• 1951 - Patrick Hall was born. British politician.
• 1952 - Governor Evelyn Baring declared a state of emergency in Kenya and began arresting hundreds of suspected leaders of the Mau Mau Uprising, including Jomo Kenyatta, the future first President of Kenya.
• 1953 - Bill Nunn was born. American actor.
• 1953 - Keith Hernandez was born. American baseball player.
• 1953 - Maria Zilda was born. Brazilian actress.
• 1954 - Günter Müller was born. German sound artist, improvisor and percussionist.
• 1954 - Steve Orich was born. American orchestrator.
• 1955 - Publication of The Return of the King, being the last part of The Lord if the Rings.
• 1955 - Aaron Pryor was born. American boxer.
• 1955 - David Profumo was born. English novelist.
• 1955 - Thomas Newman was born. American composer.
• 1956 - Danny Boyle was born. English film director and actor.
• 1957 - Susanna Haavisto was born. Finnish actress and singer.
• 1958 - Dave Krieg was born. American football player.
• 1958 - Ivo Pogorelic was born. Croatian pianist.
• 1958 - Lynn Flewelling was born. American fantasy author.
• 1958 - Mark King was born. English musician and singer (Level 42).
• 1958 - Scott Hall was born. American professional wrestler.
• 1958 - Valerie Faris was born. American film director.
• 1958 - Viggo Mortensen was born. American actor.
• 1959 - A RTP torna-se membro da UER - União Europeia de Radiodifusão.
• 1960 - Konstantin Aseev was born (d. 2004). Russian chess player.
• 1960 - Lepa Brena was born. Famous Yugoslav singer.
• 1961 - Ian Rush was born. Welsh footballer.
• 1961 - Michie Tomizawa was born. Japanese voice actress.
• 1962 - Dave Wong was born. Hong Kong/Taiwanese singer-songwriter.
• 1962 - David M. Evans was born. American screenwriter and film director.
• 1963 - Nikos Tsiantakis was born. Greek footballer.
• 1963 - Julie Payette was born. Canadian astronaut.
• 1964 - Herbert Hoover dies (b. 1874). 31st President of the United States.
• 1965 - Jil Caplan was born. French singer and songwriter.
• 1965 - Mikhail Shtalenkov was born. Russian ice hockey player.
• 1965 - Norman Blake was born. Scottish musician.
• 1965 - William Zabka was born. American actor.
• 1966 - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was born (d. 2006).
• 1966 - Allan Donald was born. South African cricketer.
• 1966 - Patrick J. Volkerding was born. Founder and maintainer of the Slackware Linux distribution.
• 1966 - Stefan Raab was born. German entertainer.
• 1967 - Seven men were convicted in Meridian, Mississipi, of violating the civil rights of three murdered civil rights workers.
• 1967 - A purported bigfoot is filmed by Patterson and Gimlin.
• 1967 - Luck Mervil was born. Québécois actor and singer.
• 1967 - Luigi Lo Cascio was born. Italian actor.
• 1967 - Marco Ngai was born. Hong Kong actor.
• 1967 - Yoshida Shigeru dies (b. 1878). Prime Minister of Japan.
• 1968 - Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
• 1968 - Mamo Wolde wins 16th Olympic marathon (2:20:26.4).
• 1968 - Bud Flanagan dies (b. 1896). British wartime entertainer.
• 1969 - Juan Gonzalez was born. Puerto Rican baseball player.
• 1969 - Lambros Papakostas was born. Greek high jumper.
• 1969 - Laurie Daley was born. Australian rugby league footballer.
• 1970 - Siad Barre declares Somalia a socialist state.
• 1970 - Chavo Guerrero, Jr. was born. American professional wrestler.
• 1970 - Michelle Malkin was born. American political commentator and author.
• 1971 - The Nepal stock exchange collapses.
• 1971 - Dannii Minogue was born. Australian-born singer.
• 1971 - Snoop Dogg was born. American rapper.
• 1972 - Will Greenwood was born. England rugby union player.
• 1972 - Harlow Shapley dies (b. 1885). American astronomer.
• 1973 - The Saturday Night Massacre: President Nixon fires Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.
• 1973 - The Sydney Opera House opens.
• 1973 - The Six Million Dollar Man premieres on ABC.
• 1976 - The ferry George Prince is struck by a ship while crossing the Mississippi River between Destrehan and Luling, LA. Seventy-eight passengers and crew died; only 18 people aboard the ferry survived.
• 1976 - Tom Wisniewski was born. American guitarist (mxpx).
• 1977 - A plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in Mississippi, killing several band members, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines.
• 1977 - Members of the American rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd killed in a plane crash:
  Cassie Gaines (b. 1948); Steve Gaines (b. 1949) ; Ronnie Van Zant (b. 1948).
• 1977 - Leila Josefowicz was born. Canadian classical violinist.
• 1977 - Matt Jansen was born. English footballer.
• 1978 - Michael Johns was born. American Idol (season 7) finalist.
• 1978 - Paul Wilson was born. Irish bass player (Snow Patrol).
• 1978 - Virender Sehwag was born. Indian cricketer.
• 1979 - The John F Kennedy library is opened in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1979 - John Krasinski was born. American actor.
• 1979 - Paul O'Connell was born. Irish rugby player.
• 1979 - Paul Ifill was born. Barbadian footballer.
• 1979 - Reinhold Baer dies. German mathematician.
• 1980 - Gary Jarman was born. English musician.
• 1980 - Jose Veras was born. Dominican baseball player.
• 1980 - Robert Whittaker dies (1920). American zoologist.
• 1981 - Dimitrios Papadopoulos was born. Greek footballer.
• 1981 - Francisco Javier Rodríguez was born. Mexican footballer.
• 1981 - Willis McGahee was born. American football player.
• 1982 - During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem at least 63 and probably many more people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.
• 1982 - St. Louis Cardinals defeat Milwaukee Brewers 6-3 to win 9th World Series Championship.
• 1982 - Nobel prize for economy awarded to George Stigler.
• 1982 - Sri Lanka - President Jayewardene re-elected.
• 1982 - Becky Brewerton was born. Welsh golfer.
• 1982 - Roberta Rodrigues was born. Brazilian actress.
• 1982 - Yasser Al-Qahtani was born. Saudi football player.
• 1983 - Alex Nackman was born. American musician.
• 1983 - Takayuki Yamada was born. Japanese actor.
• 1983 - Luis Saritama was born. Ecuadorian footballer.
• 1983 - Peter Dudley dies (b. 1935). British actor.
• 1983 - Yves Thériault dies (b. 1915). French Canadian author.
• 1984 - The Monterey Bay Aquarium opens in Monterey Bay, California.
• 1984 - Florent Sinama-Pongolle was born. French footballer.
• 1984 - Andrew Trimble was born. Northern Irish rugby player for Irish rugby team.
• 1984 - Carl Ferdinand Cori dies (b. 1896). Austrian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• 1984 - Paul Dirac dies (b. 1902). English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate in 1933.
• 1985 - Dominic McGuire was born. American basketball player.
• 1985 - James Sutton was born. British racing driver.
• 1985 - Jennifer Nicole Freeman was born. American actress.
• 1986 - Yitzhak Shamir begins his second office term as Israel's prime minister.
• 1986 - Priyanka Sharma was born. Indian actress.
• 1987 - Andrey Kolmogorov dies (b. 1903). Russian mathematician.
• 1987 - Mecha Ortiz dies. Argentinian actress.
• 1988 - Risa Niigaki was born. Japanese singer.
• 1988 - Sheila Scott dies (b. 1922). English aviatrix.
• 1989 - Anthony Quayle dies (b. 1913). English actor (Moses, Operation Crossbow).
• 1989 - Brisbane bound coach collides with Semi - Traler North of Grafton NSW (Grafton Bus Crash).
• 1989 - ACAPO - Associação dos Cegos e Amblíopes de Portugal is created.
• 1989 - Anthony Quayle dies (b. 1913). English actor (Moses, Operation Crossbow).
• 1990 - Joel McCrea dies (b. 1905). American actor.
• 1991 - The Oakland Hills firestorm kills 25 and destroys 3469 homes and apartments, causing more than $2 billion in damage.
• 1991 - Ayrton Senna becomes for the third time Formula 1 World Champion, in Susuka, Japan.
• 1992 - Fernando Marcelino is killed in Huambo. Angolan journalist.
• 1992 - Werner Torkanowsky dies (b. 1926). German conductor.
• 1993 - Sugiyama Yasushi dies (b. 1909). Japanese painter.
• 1994 - Morgan Featherstone was born. Australian model.
• 1994 - Burt Lancaster dies (b. 1913). American actor.
• 1995 - Christopher Stone dies (b. 1942). American actor.
• 1996 - Arnoldo Alemán wins Presidential elections in Nicarágua.
• 2000 - Egyptian-born Ali Mohamed, a US citizen who served in the US Army, pleads guilty in New York to helping plan the deadly 07 August 1998 US Embassy bombings in Africa in 1998 that killed 224 people, including 12 from the US.
• 2001 - Ted Ammon dies (b. 1949). American financier.
• 2002 - Presidential elections in Ecuador: Álvaro Noboa and Lucio Gutierrez go to second round.
• 2002 - Barbara Berjer dies (b. 1920). American actress.
• 2002 - Bernard Fresson dies (b. 1931). French actor.
• 2003 - Jack Elam dies (b. 1918). American actor.
• 2003 - Miodrag Petrović dies (b. 1924). Serbian actor.
• 2004 - Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is sworn in as the President of Indonesia.
• 2004 - Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees 10-3 in Game 7 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, becoming the first team in baseball history to overcome a 3-0 series deficit in a best-of-seven series.
• 2004 - The first Ubuntu Linux distribution is released.
• 2004 - Anthony Hecht dies (b. 1923). American poet.
• 2004 - Chuck Hiller dies (b. 1934). Baseball player.
• 2005 - Shirley Horn dies (b. 1934). American singer.
• 2005 - Endon Mahmood dies (b. 1941). First Lady of Malaysia.
• 2005 - Eva Svankmajerova dies (b. 1940). Czech artist.
• 2006 - Jane Wyatt dies (b. 1910). American actress.
• 2007 - South Africa is World Champion in rugby.
• 2007 - Max McGee dies (b. 1932). American football player.
• 2007 - Paul Raven dies (b. 1961). British bass-player (Killing Joke, Ministry).
• Bahá'í Faith - Holy Day - Birth of the Báb.
• World Osteoporosis Day / Dia Mundial da Osteoporose.
• Holidays Guatemala: Revolution Day/Día de la Revolución (1944).
• Kenya : Jomo Kenyatta Day.
• Christianity - the feast day of martyr Andrew of Crete.
• French Republican Calendar - Orge (Barley) Day, twenty-ninth day in the Month of Vendémiaire.
• Portugal: Municipal Holiday in Covilhã / Feriado Municipal da Covilhã.