Famous Events For February 20 – Today In History

February 20: Today in History – Historical Events

Early Centuries – February 20 Historic Events – Before the 1700s

1. 20th Feb 1525: Swiss and German mercenaries who were in the Francois I’s army, deserted the army on this day.
2. 20th Feb 1547: Kind Edward the VI was on this day enthroned following the death of Henry VIII.
3. 20th Feb 1613: Gerard Reynst on this day was appointed as the Dutch governor-general of East Indies.
4. 20th Feb 1619: John Van Oldenbarnevelt’s trial for alleged crimes against the federal government began today in Hague.

5. 20th Feb 1653: The Dutch fleet under Adm Van Tromp was on this day defeated by Admiral Blake off Portsmouth.
6. 20th Feb 1673: The first recorded wine auction was held on this day in London.

18th Century – What Happened on February 20 – The 1700s

7. 20th Feb 1710: John Willem Frisco on this day became the first viceroy of Groningen in the Netherlands.
8. 20th Feb 1725: Whites scalped 10 sleeping Indians for a £100 per scalp bounty in New Hampshire today.
9. 20th Feb 1732: The Treaty of Vienna was on this day ratified by the Estates of Holland.
10. 20th Feb 1745: Jacobite troops on this day occupy Fort Augustus in Scotland.
11. 20th Feb 1768: The first American Chartered fire insurance company was on this day opened in Pennsylvania.
12. 20th Feb 1792: This day marks the creation of the US postal service. Depending on the distance, postage was charged between 6 cents to 12 cents.
13. 20th Feb 1798: Pope Pius VI was removed from power on this day by Alexandre Berthier.

19th Century – February 20 This Day That Year – The 1800s

14. 20th Feb 1809: The Supreme Court of the United States on this day ruled that the power of the federal government is greater than the power of the state government.
15. 20th Feb 1810: The leader of the rebellion against Napoleon’s forces Andreas Hofer was on this day executed.
16. 20th Feb 1831: The Russians were on this day defeated by Polish revolutionaries in the battle of Growchow.
17. 20th Feb 1835: An earthquake strikes Chile and the city of Concepcion was destroyed in the quake killing at least 5000 people.
18. 20th Feb 1839: Dueling in the district of Colombia was on this day prohibited by the Congress.
19. 20th Feb 1846: The Sikh citadel in Lahore on this day was occupied by the British.
20. 20th Feb 1856: Steam packet ship “John Rutledge” which was on its way to New York from Liverpool, struck an iceberg and sank. 120 passengers and 19 crew members died. There was only one survivor.
21. 20th Feb 1856: Romania abolishes slavery of the Gypsies. Discrimination persists against the group.
22. 20th Feb 1861: Steeple of Chichester Cathedral was blown down by a storm.
23. 20th Feb 1861: Today the Confederacy Department of Navy was formed.

24. 20th Feb 1864: In the Civil War, Confederate troops defeated a Union army in the Battle of Olustee, Florida.
25. 20th Feb 1865: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was on this day formed as the US collegiate architectural school.
26. 20th Feb 1869: The governor of Tennessee declared martial owing to the Ku Klux Klan crisis.
27. 20th Feb 1872: The toothpick manufacturing machine was patented by Silas Noble and JP Cooley on this day.
28. 20th Feb 1872: Luther Crowell patented the paper bag-making machine on this day.
29. 20th Feb 1872: Cyrus Baldwin on this day patented the hydraulic electric elevator.
30. 20th Feb 1873: The site of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, was on this day discovered by British Naval Officer John Moresby. He claims it for Britain.
31. 20th Feb 1873: The University of California got its first Medical School today.
32. 20th Feb 1877: The first cantilever bridge in the US was completed on this day at Harrodsburg in Kentucky.
33. 20th Feb 1887: The Triple Alliance was ended today by Germany, Austria-Hungry, and France.
34. 20th Feb 1889: The Amsterdam Theater was destroyed in a fire today.
35. 20th Feb 1895: A US mint in Denver, Colorado was on this day authorized by the US Congress.
36. 20th Feb 1899: Illinois Tel & Tel was today granted a franchise for a Chicago freight tunnel system.

20th Century – Important Events On This Day February 20th – The 1900s

37. 20th Feb 1900: J.F. Pickering on this day got a patent for his airship.
38. 20th Feb 1901: The first territorial legislature of Hawaii was convened on this day.
39. 20th Feb 1903: Pope Leo XIII celebrated 25 years as a Pope.
40. 20th Feb 1906: Russian troops on this day seized large portions of Mongolia.
41. 20th Feb 1907: President Roosevelt signed an immigration act that excluded “idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, and insane persons” from being admitted to the US.
42. 20th Feb 1913: King O’Malley on this day drives the first survey peg as a mark of commencement of work on the construction of Canberra.
43. 20th Feb 1915: President Wilson opened the Panama-Pacific International Expo in San Francisco.
44. 20th Feb 1917: An ammunition ship in the Archangel harbor exploded today killing about 1500 people.
45. 20th Feb 1919: In an assassination attempt French Prime Minister Clemceau was injured.

46. 20th Feb 1918: The Russian Red Army on this day sized Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine.
47. 20th Feb 1921: Riza Khan Pahlevi marched into Teheran with 2,500 soldiers and took control of the government. He was later crowned as the Shah of Iran.
48. 20th Feb 1922: Vilnius, Lithuania agrees to separate from Poland.
49. 20th Feb 1927: Golfers in South Carolina were arrested for violation of the Sabbath.
50. 20th Feb 1931: The Congress on this day allowed California to build the Oakland-Bay Bridge.
51. 20th Feb 1932: Japanese troops occupy Tunhua in China.
52. 20th Feb 1933: The House of Representatives completes congressional action to repeal Prohibition.
53. 20th Feb 1937: The first automobile/airplane combination was tested in Santa Monica California today.
54. 20th Feb 1938: The British foreign secretary Antony Eden resigned as he was opposed to the Munich agreement. He also did not believe that Prime Minister Chamberlin should open negotiations with Italy.
55. 20th Feb 1941: Romania on this day broke its relations with the Netherlands.
56. 20th Feb 1941: First transport of Jews to concentration camps leaves Plotsk Poland.
57. 20th Feb 1941: Nazis order barred Polish Jews from using public transport.

58. 20th Feb 1942: Lt O’Hare shot down five Japanese bombers single-handedly and became America’s First World War II flying ace.
59. 20th Feb 1943: On this day New Volcano Paracutin erupted in a farmer’s corn field in Mexico.
60. 20th Feb 1943: Kasserine pass in Tunisia was on this day occupied by the Allied forces.
61. 20th Feb 1944: American Bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers mark the beginning of the big week in World War II.
62. 20th Feb 1946: The US Employment Act was on this day signed into law. The responsibility for economic stability, inflation, and unemployment was laid with the Federal Government.
63. 20th Feb 1947: A chemical mixing error caused an explosion that destroyed 42 blocks in Los Angeles.
64. 20th Feb 1947: Lord Mountbatten was on this day appointed the last viceroy of India to oversee the move to independence.
65. 20th Feb 1947: State of Prussia seizes to exist.
66. 20th Feb 1948: The non-communist minister of Czechoslovakia resigns on this day.
67. 20th Feb 1953: The US Court of Appeals on this day ruled that organized baseball is a sport and not a business, affirming the 25-year-old ruling of the Supreme Court.
68. 20th Feb 1954: The Persian election was won on this day by General Zahedi.
69. 20th Feb 1954: The Ford Foundation gave a $25 million grant to Fund Advancement of Education.

70. 20th Feb 1959: The Diefenbaker government in Canada canceled the “Avro Arrow” program to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada.
71. 20th Feb 1962: On this day John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in his spacecraft Friendship 7.
72. 20th Feb 1965: Ranger 8 on this day made a hard landing on the moon. It sent back photos and other data.
73. 20th Feb 1965: Britain starts prospecting for oil and gas in the icy waters of the North Sea off Britain’s East Coast.
74. 20th Feb 1968: Following the Tet Offensive the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins hearings to investigate American policy in Vietnam.
75. 20th Feb 1971: Major General Idi Amin Dada today appointed himself as the President of Uganda.
76. 20th Feb 1975: Margret Thatcher was on this day elected as the leader of the British Conservative Party.
77. 20th Feb 1975: U.S.S.R. on this day performed a nuclear test at its Eastern Kazakhstan test site.
78. 20th Feb 1975: A feud begins between the Official Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army resulting in the two groups killing each other’s volunteers. This was resolved in June 1975.
79. 20th Feb 1976: Today the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was disbanded.

80. 20th Feb 1978: Egypt on this day announced that it was pulling out its diplomats from Cyprus.
81. 20th Feb 1985: Ireland, which is a predominantly catholic country, after much debate allowed the sale of contraceptives.
82. 20th Feb 1986: It was announced on this day that a tunnel channel would be built by France and Britain to create an underground travel path.
83. 20th Feb 1986: The Soviet Union on this day launched the biggest space station, Mir. It is intended to provide a base for a permanently manned space complex orbiting the Earth.
84. 20th Feb 1987: A bomb exploded in a computer store in Salt Lake City. The blast was blamed on the Unabomber.
85. 20th Feb 1998: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan today landed in Bagdad for peace negotiations.
86. 20th Feb 1998: Fifteen-year-old American girl Tara Lipinski on this day became the youngest person to win a gold medal in the history of the Winter Olympics. She won a gold medal in the ladies figure skating event.

21st Century – February 20 This Day In History – The 2000s

87. 20th Feb 2001: Robert Phillip Hanson, an FBI agent was arrested on charges of spying for the Russians for 15 years.
88. 20th Feb 2001: The Supreme Court of the United States declined to consider an appeal by five major oil companies against Unocal’s patent on the production of cleaner reformulated gasoline sold in California.

89. 20th Feb 2003: There was a fire at a rock concert at a Rhode Island nightclub caused by the pyrotechnics display igniting the soundproof roofing foam. The fire killed over 100 people and left 200 more people injured.
90. 20th Feb 2003: A fire on the train in Requ Al-Gharbia killed at least 370 and injured about 65 people.
91. 20th Feb 2005: Spain on this day became the first country to ratify the proposed Constitution of the European Union in a referendum by a high margin but with a low turnout.
92. 20th Feb 2007: An American appeals court on this day upheld an anti-terrorist provision that states that Guantanamo Bay inmates will not be able to challenge their detention in the U.S. courts.
93. 20th Feb 2008: The US Navy fired a missile from the USS Lake Erie and destroyed an inoperable spy satellite.
94. 20th Feb 2010: Heavy rainfall on the small Island of Madeira caused massive mudslides that buried the major part of the city of Funchal leaving 40 dead and many injured.
95. 20th Feb 23011: Peru cracked down on illegal gold mining. It sent its forces to destroy illegal miners and river dredgers in the Amazon region.
96. 20th Feb 2012: South Korea on this day annoyed North Korea by conducting live-fire drills in the disputed Korean sea borders.
97. 20th Feb 2013: Civil service workers went on strike in Malawi over wages. This caused all the airports in Malawi to be shut down, canceling both domestic and international flights.
98. 20th Feb 2013: Estonia on this day became the first country to establish a national system of fast chargers for electric cars.
99. 20th Feb 2014: The earthquake that struck Japan caused leakage of tons of contaminated and radioactive water. The officials claimed that the leakage was caused because the valve was mistakenly left open.

100. 20th Feb 2016: Fiji is hit by tropical cyclone Wilson killing at least 29 people. The storm was the most powerful recorded in the Southern Hemisphere with wind speeds of 296 Kmph.
Historical Events of 20th Feb:

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