1896 – Dial telephone patented
1934 – Australian cricket opening batsman Bill Ponsford is dismissed for 266 in his final Test match against England at The Oval; out for 22 in 2nd innings
1941 – Police raid 11th district of Paris, takes 4,000+ Jewish males
1952 – 13th Venice Film Festival: “Genghis Khan” directed by Manuel Conde wins the Golden Lion
1979 – The East Coast Main Line rail route between England and Scotland is restored when the Penmanshiel Diversion opens.
1980 – Reinhold Messner of Italy is 1st to solo ascent Mt Everest
1985 – Libya throws out 1000s Tunisian/Egyptian gas workers
1999 – 7th Athletics World Championships open at Seville, Spain
2016 – German canoeist Sebastian Brendel teams with Jan Vandrey to win the C-2 1,000m at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; wraps up C-1 / C-2 1,000m double
2016 – Suicide bombing in Turkish city Gaziantep during a wedding party kills at least 51
Author: gil7
Today in History for 20th August 2020
Historical Events
1641 – England and Scotland sign Treaty of Pacification
1905 – Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen forms the first chapter of T’ung Meng Hui, a union of all secret societies determined to bringing down the Manchus (Qing dynasty)
1914 – German General von Bulow executes 211 Belgians
1951 – 12th Venice Film Festival: “Rashomon” directed by Akira Kurosawa wins the Golden Lion
1975 – Il-62 crashes south of Damascus, Syria, killing 126
1980 – NY Yankee Bob Watson hits Seattle Kingdome speaker, 2nd straight day
Famous Birthdays
1632 – Louis Bourdaloue, French Jesuit preacher, born in Bourges, France (d. 1704)
1710 – Thomas Simpson, English mathematician (rule of Simpson), born in Sutton Cheney, Leicestershire (d. 1761)
1922 – Tetsuzo Akutsu, Japanese surgeon who built the first artificial heart, born in Japan (d. 2007)
1955 – Rob Wiedijk, Dutch rock vocalist (Bob Color)
1962 – Dong-Wook Song, South Korean tennis player, born in Seoul, South Korea
1968 – Klas Ingesson, Swedish footballer and manager, born in Ödeshög, Sweden (d. 2014)
Famous Deaths
1572 – Miguel López de Legazpi, Spanish conquistador (b. 1502)
1643 – Anne Hutchinson, English Puritan preacher, killed in Native American uprising (b. 1591)
1804 – Charles Floyd, only fatality of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
1971 – Rashid Minhas, Pakistani Air Force pilot (b. 1951)
1986 – Walter Brooke, actor (DA Scanlon-Green Hornet), dies at 71
2016 – Irving Fields [Yitzhak Schwartz], American lounge pianist and composer (Ilona Massey Show; Bagels and Bongos), dies at 101
Famous Deaths for 19th August 2020
1186 – Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany (b. 1158)
1580 – Andrea Palladio [Andrea di Pietro della Gondola], Italian architect (Il Redentore, Venice), dies at 71
1646 – Alexander Henderson, Scottish theologian
1944 – Gunther von Kluge, German field marshal, commits suicide, dies at 62
1979 – Dorsey Burnette, American rockabilly singer (The Rock and Roll trio), dies at 46
1986 – Lorenzo Tucker, actor (Black King), dies
1993 – Jean King, actress (Night Hasa a Thousand Eyes), dies at 76
1994 – Walter Bartley, biochemist, dies at 78
2008 – Marguerite Empey, [Diane Webber], American model and Playboy playmate (May 1955, Feb 1956), dies at 76
2012 – Tony Scott, English film director and producer (Top Gun, Revenge, Days of Thunder), commits suicide at 68
Historical Events for 19th August 2020
1493 – Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I becomes Archduke of Austria
1702 – -24] Battle at Santa Marta Venz: English fleet beat French
1887 – Dmitri Mendeleev makes a solo ascent by balloon to an altitude of 11,500 feet (3.5 km) above Klin, Russia to observe an eclipse
1922 – US National Championship Women’s Tennis, Germantown CC, PA: Molla Bjurstedt Mallory beats Helen Wills Moody 6-3, 6-1 for her 7th US singles crown
1960 – The first commercial atomic energy reactor, owned by the Yankee Atomic Electric Company, achieves a self-sustaining nuclear reaction in Rowe, Deerfield River, Massachusetts
1984 – PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Shoal Creek: Lee Trevino wins his 2nd PGA C’ship by 4 shots from Gary Player and Lanny Wadkins
1993 – Mattel and Fisher Price toy companies merge
2008 – “The Fame”, debut album by Lady Gaga, is released (Grammy Award Album of the Year, Best Electronic/Dance Album 2009)
2016 – A 6-way tie for first place in the final of the equestrian individual jumping competition at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; Nick Skelton of Great Britain wins gold medal jump-off
2016 – Kiley Neushul scores 3 goals as the US women’s water polo team routs Italy 12-5 to win the gold medal in Rio de Janeiro and retain their Olympic title
Today in History for 19th August 2020
Historical Events
1504 – Battle of Knockdoe in Galway Ireland.
1911 – NY Giant Christy Mathewson loses after beating Reds 22 straight times
1969 – Chicago Cub Ken Holtzman no-hits Atlanta Braves, 3-0
1979 – “My Sharonna” by the Knack hits #1 (stays for 42 days)
2010 – Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, with the last of the United States brigade combat teams crossing the border to Kuwait
2016 – A 6-way tie for first place in the final of the equestrian individual jumping competition at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; Nick Skelton of Great Britain wins gold medal jump-off
Famous Birthdays
1893 – Olga Baclanova, Russian actress (Freaks, Docks of NY), born in Moscow, Russia (d. 1974)
1918 – Shankar Dayal Sharma, Indian politician, ninth President of India (1992-97), born in Bhopal, British India (d. 1999)
1942 – Fred Thompson, US senator (R-Tenn)/actor (In the Line of Fire), born in Sheffield, Alabama (d. 2015)
1965 – Maria de Medeiros, Portuguese actress and director
1980 – Jun Jin, Korean rapper (Shinhwa), born in Seoul, South Korea
1983 – Tammin Sursok, Australian actress and singer, born in Johannesburg, South Africa
Famous Deaths
1765 – Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, Swedish Chemist who discovered nickel and tungsten, dies at 42
1872 – Eugene-Prosper Prevost, French composer, dies at 63
1909 – Rembt THPLA of Boneval Faure, lawyer/1st-Member of parliament, dies
1944 – Gunther von Kluge, German field marshal, commits suicide, dies at 62
1968 – George Gamow, Ukrainian-born physicist (b. 1904)
2001 – Betty Everett, American singer and pianist (b. 1939)
Famous Deaths for 18th August 2020
1712 – Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers, English soldier
1797 – Josiah Spode, English potter and founder of Spode pottery works, dies at 64
1842 – Louis de Freycinet, French explorer and navigator (published the first map to show a full outline of the coastline of Australia in 1811), dies at 62
1853 – Peter Lichtenthal, composer, dies at 73
1957 – Wawrzyniec Żuławski, Polish composer, dies at 41
1966 – Watze Cuperus, Frisian author (Struggle and Blessing), dies at 75
1983 – Nikolaus Pevsner, German-born art historian (b. 1902)
2000 – Maurice Evans, English soccer wing half (Reading, 407 games) and manager (Shrewsbury Town, Reading, Oxford United), dies from a heart attack at 63
2005 – Christopher Bauman, American wrestler (b. 1982)
2015 – Roger Smalley, British-Australian composer, dies at 72
Historical Events for 18th August 2020
1605 – Spanish army under of general Spinola conquers Lingen
1846 – General Stephen W Kearney’s US forces capture Santa Fe, New Mexico
1914 – -20] Belgian army withdraws to Antwerp
1926 – Weather map televised for 1st time
1955 – 46.1 cm rainfall at Westfield, Massachusetts (state record)
1958 – Floyd Patterson TKOs Roy Harris in 13 for heavyweight boxing title
1967 – WCBS radio in NYC goes all-news
1976 – USSR’s Luna 24 soft-lands on Moon
1981 – Football running back, Herschel Walker, of U of Georgia, takes out a Lloyd’s of London insurance policy for $1 million
1996 – Record 6,654 tap at Macy’s Tap-o-mania in NYC
Today in History for 18th August 2020
Historical Events
1737 – First public admittance to the Salon de Paris art exhibition at the Louvre in Paris
1958 – Verne Gagne beats Edouard Carpentier in Omaha, to become NWA champ
1983 – USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
2008 – Belarus weightlifter Andrei Aramnau breaks 3 world records, for the snatch, clean and jerk, and total, on the way to winning the men’s 105kg gold medal at the Beijing Olympics
2013 – Solheim Cup Women’s Golf, Colorado GC: Europe retain Cup for the first time in record winning margin 18-12; Sweden’s Caroline Hedwall becomes first player to win 5 matches in a single competition
2017 – Civilian researchers led by Paul Allen re-discover the USS Indianapolis 18,000 feet below the Pacific surface, 72 years after it was sunk by Japanese torpedoes
Famous Birthdays
1685 – Brook Taylor, English mathematician, discoverer of Taylor’s Theorem, born in Edmonton, Middlesex, England (d. 1731)
1964 – Edith Frost, American singer and songwriter, born in San Antonio, Texas
1964 – Kenny Walker, American basketball player, born in Roberta, Georgia
1971 – Kevin Bouie, American football running back (Philadelphia Eagles, Ariz Cardinals), born in Pahokee, Florida
1974 – Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Guyanese cricketer (WI left-handed batsman 1994-), born in Unity Village, Guyana
1994 – Jessie Flower [Michaela Murphy], American actress (Avatar: The Last Airbender), born in Southern Indiana
Famous Deaths
1227 – Genghis Khan [Temüjin Borjigin], Mongolian warlord who founded the Mongol Empire, dies at around 65
1858 – William Austin Burt, American scientist, surveyor and inventor who patented America’s first typographer (typewriter) and the equatorial sextant, dies at 66
1942 – Erwin Schulhoff, Czech-Russian composer and pianist (Ogelala), dies of tuberculosis at 48 in a German concentration camp in Wülzburg, Bavaria
1980 – Norman Cazden, composer, dies at 65
2003 – Tony Jackson, English bass player (The Searchers), dies at 63
2010 – Hal Connolly, American Athlete and hammer thrower (b.1931)
Famous Deaths for 17th August 2020
1536 – Pietersz, book publisher (Kersten Knight – on Index), dies
1865 – Mosby Munroe Parsons, United States officer in the Mexican–American War and brigadier general of the Confederate States Army, dies in battle at 42
1888 – James Jameson, British nature investigator (Congo), dies
1945 – Gino Marinuzzi, Italian conductor and composer, dies at 61
1963 – Richard Barthelmess, American actor (Broken Blossoms, Noose, Heroes for Sales), dies of cancer at 68
1972 – Wampilow, writer, dies
1991 – Donald “Don” Dubbins, American actor (From Here to Eternity, The Caine Mutiny), dies of cancer at 63
1991 – Mervyn Nelson, director (Some of My Best Friends Are…), dies at 76
1994 – Elias Canetti, buried next to James Joyce
1995 – William Strethan “Wild Bill” Davis, musician, dies at 76
Historical Events for 17th August 2020
1827 – Dutch King Willem I and Pope Leo XII sign concord
1907 – Bishop forbids Christian membership of Dutch Textile Union
1915 – Hurricane strikes Galveston, Texas (275 killed)
1938 – Henry Armstrong wins his 3rd concurrent boxing championship
1955 – Hurricane Diane, following hurricane Connie floods Connecticut River killing 190 and doing $1.8 billion damage
1977 – Thomas Wessinghage, Harald Hudak, Michael Lederer and Karl Fleschen walk world record 4x1500m (14:38.8)
1979 – Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” directed by Terry Jones, starring Graham Chapman and John Cleese premieres
1980 – “Blackstone” closes at Majestic Theater NYC after 104 performances
1990 – Carlton Fisk hits White Sox record 187th HR
2017 – Three Hong Kong activists, Jason Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow jailed for unlawful assembly