August 20
1862 - The New York Tribune published an open letter by editor Horace Greeley calling on President Abraham Lincoln to take more aggressive measures to free the slaves and end the South’s rebellion.
1866 - President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, months after fighting had stopped.
1882 - Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” had its premiere in Moscow.
1910 - A series of forest fires swept through parts of Idaho, Montana and Washington, killing at least 85 people and burning some 3 million acres.
1940 - Exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Coyoacan, Mexico by Ramon Mercader. (Trotsky died the next day.)
1953 - The Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
1955 - Hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.
1964 - As part of his "Great Society" policies, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a $1 billion anti-poverty measure called the Economic Opportunity Act which, among other things, established the Head Start program.
1968 - The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization drive.
1977 - The space probe Voyager 2 was launched. It continues to explore to this day, and is now more than 7 billion miles from Earth.
1980 - Italian Reinhold Messner made the first successful solo ascent of Mount Everest and without the use of oxygen.
1986 - Postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill went on a deadly rampage at a post office in Edmond, Oklahoma, shooting 14 fellow workers to death before killing himself.
1988 - A cease-fire in the war between Iran and Iraq went into effect.
1989 - Fifty-one people died when a pleasure boat sank in the River Thames in London after colliding with a dredger.
1998 - U.S. cruise missiles hit suspected terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan.
2020 - Accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden vowed to move the nation past the chaos of Donald Trump’s tenure and return it to its leadership role in the world; capping a virtual convention amid the pandemic, Biden spoke to a largely empty arena in Delaware.
2020 - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny became ill on a flight to Moscow from Siberia and was hospitalized in a coma. (Navalny would spend five months in Germany recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin; he was arrested after his return to Russia.)
2021 - President Joe Biden pledged to bring all Americans home from Afghanistan, along with all Afghans who aided the U.S. war effort there; his promise came as thousands more Americans and others seeking to escape the Taliban struggled to get past crushing crowds and Taliban checkpoints at the airport.
2021 - San Francisco became the first major city in the nation to require proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for people dining inside restaurants, working out in gyms or attending indoor concerts.
2021 - China changed its Population and Family Planning Law to allow couples to legally have a third child; the change came just six years after the law was changed to allow a second child amid a plummeting birthrate.
Birthdays
27 - Liana Liberato (actress)
30 - Demi Lovato (actress/singer)
30 - Neslihan Atagul (actress)
33 - Olivia Pierson (reality star)
37 - Brant Daugherty (actor)
39 - Andrew Garfield (actor)
40 - Meghan Ory (actress)
41 - Ben Barnes (actor)
47 - Monique Powell (singer)
48 - Amy Adams (actress)
48 - Misha Collins (actress)
51 - David Williams (comedian)
52 - Jonathan Ke Quan (actor)
52 - Fred Durst (singer)
53 - Billy Gardell (actor)
56 - Colin Cunningham (actor)
60 - James Marsters (actor)
66 - Joan Allen (actress)
67 - Jay Acovone (actor)
68 - Al Roker (TV weatherman)
69 - Peter Horton (actor)
70 - John Hiatt (singer)
74 - John Noble (actor)
74 - Robert Plant (singer)
75 - Ray Wise (actor)
76 - Connie Chung (journalist)
78 - Graig Nettles (baseball player)
91 - Don King (boxing promoter)
====================================
Today in Sports History - August 20
1912 - Pitcher Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators wins an American League record 15th straight game.
1920 - Representatives of four professional football clubs met in the first of two meetings in Canton, Ohio. The meetings led to the founding of the American Professional Football Association. Two years later the APFA officially became the National Football League.
1945 - Tommy Brown of the Brooklyn Dodgers became the youngest player to hit a home run in a major league ball game. Brown was 17 years, 8 months and 14 days old.
1974 - Nolan Ryan throws a pitch recorded at 100.4 mph.
1991 - Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins passes Joe Montana as the NFL's highest-paid player, signing a five-year contract extension worth $25 million.
2000 - In winning the PGA Championship, Tiger Woods became the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year.
2005 - Thomas Herrion (San Francisco 49ers) collapsed and died after a preseason game in Denver.
2010 - A federal grand jury indicted former baseball player Roger Clemens for lying to the U.S. Congress about steroid use. The trial ended in a mistrial.
2012 - In a historic change at one of the world’s most exclusive golf clubs, Georgia’s Augusta National invited former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to become the first female members; both accepted.
2016 - In Rio de Janeiro, the U.S. women's basketball team won the gold medal for the sixth consecutive Olympics.
1862 - The New York Tribune published an open letter by editor Horace Greeley calling on President Abraham Lincoln to take more aggressive measures to free the slaves and end the South’s rebellion.
1866 - President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, months after fighting had stopped.
1882 - Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” had its premiere in Moscow.
1910 - A series of forest fires swept through parts of Idaho, Montana and Washington, killing at least 85 people and burning some 3 million acres.
1940 - Exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Coyoacan, Mexico by Ramon Mercader. (Trotsky died the next day.)
1953 - The Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
1955 - Hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.
1964 - As part of his "Great Society" policies, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a $1 billion anti-poverty measure called the Economic Opportunity Act which, among other things, established the Head Start program.
1968 - The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization drive.
1977 - The space probe Voyager 2 was launched. It continues to explore to this day, and is now more than 7 billion miles from Earth.
1980 - Italian Reinhold Messner made the first successful solo ascent of Mount Everest and without the use of oxygen.
1986 - Postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill went on a deadly rampage at a post office in Edmond, Oklahoma, shooting 14 fellow workers to death before killing himself.
1988 - A cease-fire in the war between Iran and Iraq went into effect.
1989 - Fifty-one people died when a pleasure boat sank in the River Thames in London after colliding with a dredger.
1998 - U.S. cruise missiles hit suspected terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan.
2020 - Accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden vowed to move the nation past the chaos of Donald Trump’s tenure and return it to its leadership role in the world; capping a virtual convention amid the pandemic, Biden spoke to a largely empty arena in Delaware.
2020 - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny became ill on a flight to Moscow from Siberia and was hospitalized in a coma. (Navalny would spend five months in Germany recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin; he was arrested after his return to Russia.)
2021 - President Joe Biden pledged to bring all Americans home from Afghanistan, along with all Afghans who aided the U.S. war effort there; his promise came as thousands more Americans and others seeking to escape the Taliban struggled to get past crushing crowds and Taliban checkpoints at the airport.
2021 - San Francisco became the first major city in the nation to require proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for people dining inside restaurants, working out in gyms or attending indoor concerts.
2021 - China changed its Population and Family Planning Law to allow couples to legally have a third child; the change came just six years after the law was changed to allow a second child amid a plummeting birthrate.
Birthdays
27 - Liana Liberato (actress)
30 - Demi Lovato (actress/singer)
30 - Neslihan Atagul (actress)
33 - Olivia Pierson (reality star)
37 - Brant Daugherty (actor)
39 - Andrew Garfield (actor)
40 - Meghan Ory (actress)
41 - Ben Barnes (actor)
47 - Monique Powell (singer)
48 - Amy Adams (actress)
48 - Misha Collins (actress)
51 - David Williams (comedian)
52 - Jonathan Ke Quan (actor)
52 - Fred Durst (singer)
53 - Billy Gardell (actor)
56 - Colin Cunningham (actor)
60 - James Marsters (actor)
66 - Joan Allen (actress)
67 - Jay Acovone (actor)
68 - Al Roker (TV weatherman)
69 - Peter Horton (actor)
70 - John Hiatt (singer)
74 - John Noble (actor)
74 - Robert Plant (singer)
75 - Ray Wise (actor)
76 - Connie Chung (journalist)
78 - Graig Nettles (baseball player)
91 - Don King (boxing promoter)
====================================
Today in Sports History - August 20
1912 - Pitcher Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators wins an American League record 15th straight game.
1920 - Representatives of four professional football clubs met in the first of two meetings in Canton, Ohio. The meetings led to the founding of the American Professional Football Association. Two years later the APFA officially became the National Football League.
1945 - Tommy Brown of the Brooklyn Dodgers became the youngest player to hit a home run in a major league ball game. Brown was 17 years, 8 months and 14 days old.
1974 - Nolan Ryan throws a pitch recorded at 100.4 mph.
1991 - Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins passes Joe Montana as the NFL's highest-paid player, signing a five-year contract extension worth $25 million.
2000 - In winning the PGA Championship, Tiger Woods became the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year.
2005 - Thomas Herrion (San Francisco 49ers) collapsed and died after a preseason game in Denver.
2010 - A federal grand jury indicted former baseball player Roger Clemens for lying to the U.S. Congress about steroid use. The trial ended in a mistrial.
2012 - In a historic change at one of the world’s most exclusive golf clubs, Georgia’s Augusta National invited former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to become the first female members; both accepted.
2016 - In Rio de Janeiro, the U.S. women's basketball team won the gold medal for the sixth consecutive Olympics.
