Title: July 20 Content: == Events == === Up to 1900 === * 70 - Siege of Jerusalem: Titus, son of Vespasian, storms the fortress of Antonia north of the Temple Mount. The Roman army is drawn into street fights with the Zealots. * 1189 - Richard I of England is invested as Duke of Normandy. * 1304 – Wars of Scottish Independence: King Edward I of England takes control of Stirling Castle. * 1402 - Ottoman-Timurid Wars: Battle of Ankara - Timur, ruler of the Timurid Empire, defeats the forces of Ottoman Empire Sultan, Bayezid I. * 1592 - Japanese forces under Toyotomi Hideyoshi capture Pyongyang during their invasion of Korea, but ultimately fail to hold on to it. * 1738 - Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan. * 1799 - Tekle Giyorgis I starts the first of his five reigns as Emperor of Ethiopia. * 1807 - Nicéphore Niépce is given a patent by Napoleon Bonaparte for the Pyreolophore, the first internal combustion engine. * 1810 – Citizens of Bogota, New Granada (in present-day Colombia), declare independence from Spain. * 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Peachtree Creek. * 1866 - Austro-Prussian War: Battle of Lissa - The Austrian Navy, led by Wilhelm von Tegetthof, defeats the Italian Navy near the island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea. * 1871 – British Columbia joins the Confederation of Canada. * 1885 - The English Football Association allows professionalism in association football. * 1898 – Spanish-American War: A boiler explodes on the USS Iowa, off the coast of Santiago de Cuba. === 1901 2000 === * 1903 – The Ford Motor company ships its first car. * 1906 – Finland gives women the right to vote. * 1917 – World War I: The Corfu Declaration, which leads to the creation of the postwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia, is signed by the Yugoslav committee and the Kingdom of Serbia. * 1922 - The League of Nations awards mandates of Togoland to France and Tanganyika to the United Kingdom. * 1924 – FIDE, the worldwide governing body of chess, is founded in Paris. * 1935 - Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashes into a Swiss mountain, killing 13 people. * 1940 - Denmark leaves the League of Nations. * 1940 - California opens its first freeway. * 1944 – The 20 July plot to kill Adolf Hitler fails. * 1949 - Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their 19-month war. * 1951 – King Abdullah I of Jordan is murdered by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem. * 1954 - Otto John, head of West Germany's secret service, defects to East Germany. * 1960 – In Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), Sirimavo Bandaranaike is elected as the world's first female Prime Minister. * 1961 - The French military breaks the Tunisian siege of Bizerte. * 1968 – The Special Olympics are founded. * 1969 – A ceasefire ends the 6-day Football War between Honduras and El Salvador. * 1969 - Eddy Merckx wins his first Tour de France. * 1969 – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the Moon, becoming the first-ever humans to do so. * 1974 – Cyprus dispute: The Turkish occupation of Cyprus begins. * 1976 – The American Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars. * 1977 - Johnstown, Pennsylvania is hit by a flash flood that kills 80 people. * 1982 - In London, the Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings are carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, killing 8 people and 7 horses. 47 people are injured. * 1985 – The government of Aruba passes legislation to separate from the Netherlands Antilles. * 1989 - Aung San Suu Kyi is put under house arrest by the Burmese military junta for the first time. * 2000 – Leaders of Salt Lake City's bid to host the Winter Olympics, are indicted by a federal grand jury for bribery, fraud and racketeering. === From 2001 === * 2001 - Italian activist Carlo Giuliani is shot dead by police during a demonstration against the G8 summit being held in Genoa. * 2005 - Same-sex marriage is officially made legal in Canada. * 2007 – Heavy rain causes flooding across England and Wales. * 2012 - A gunman opens fire at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado during the screening of the new Batman movie. The shooting kills 12 people and 59 are reported injured. * 2014 - The 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict goes through its deadliest day, with over 90 Palestinian civilians and 13 Israeli soldiers killed. * 2015 - A suicide bombing in Suruc, Turkey, near the Syrian border, kills at least 30 people. * 2015 - Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States are fully restored after 54 years of hostilities between the two countries. * 2017 - O. J. Simpson is granted parole after serving nine years of a 33-year jail sentence for armed robbery. == Births == === Up to 1900 === * 356 BC – Alexander the Great, Macedonian king and conqueror of Persia (d. 323 BC) * 810 - Muhammad al-Bukhari, Muslim scholar (d. 870) * 1304 – Petrarch, Italian poet and scholar (d. 1374) * 1519 – Pope Innocent IX (d. 1591) * 1620 - Nikolaes Heinsius, Dutch scholar (d. 1681) * 1757 – Garsevan Chavchavadze, Georgian diplomat and politician (d. 1811) * 1762 - Jakob Haibel, Austrian composer, tenor and choirmaster (d. 1826) * 1766 - Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, British peer, diplomat and art thief (d. 1841) * 1785 - Mahmud II, Ottoman sultan (d. 1839) * 1797 - Pawel Edmund Strzelecki, Polish explorer and geologist (d. 1873) * 1804 - Richard Owen, British scientist (d. 1892) * 1811 - James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, British colonial officer and diplomat (d. 1863) * 1822 – Gregor Mendel, Austrian priest and geneticist (d. 1884) * 1830 - Clements Markham, British explorer, author and geographer (d. 1916) * 1836 - Thomas Clifford Allbutt, English physician (d. 1925) * 1838 - Augustin Daly, American playwright (d. 1899) * 1838 - George Otto Trevelyan, English statesman and biographer (d. 1928) * 1847 – Max Liebermann, German painter (d. 1935) * 1849 - Robert Anderson Van Wyck, 91st Mayor of New York City (d. 1918) * 1852 – Theo Heemskerk, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1932) * 1859 - Otto Warburg, German botanist (d. 1938) * 1864 – Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish writer (d. 1931) * 1868 - Miron Cristea, Patriarch of Romania (d. 1939) * 1868 - José Félix Uriburu, President of Argentina (d. 1932) * 1873 - Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazilian aviator (d. 1923) * 1876 - Otto Blumenthal, German mathematician (d. 1944) * 1889 - John Reith, 1st Baron Reith, British broadcaster (d. 1971) * 1890 - Verna Felton, American actress (d. 1966) * 1890 - Julie Vinter Hansen, Danish astronomer (d. 1960) * 1890 - Giorgio Morandi, Italian painter and graphic artist (d. 1964) * 1894 - Stefán Jóhann Stefánsson, Prime Minister of Iceland (d. 1980) * 1895 – László Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian artist (d. 1946) * 1896 – Eunice Sanborn, American supercentenarian, officially the second-oldest person in the world (d. 2011) * 1897 - Camillo Berneri, Italian author, philosopher and anarchist (d. 1937) * 1897 – Tadeusz Reichstein, Polish-born chemist (d. 1996) * 1900 - Maurice Leyland, English cricketer (d. 1967) === 1901 1950 === * 1910 – Mohamed Amin Didi, first President of the Maldives (d. 1954) * 1914 - Dobri Dobrev, Bulgarian philanthropist (d. 2018) * 1914 - Magda Frank, Hungarian-Argentinian sculptor (d. 2010) * 1914 - Ersilio Tonini, Italian cardinal (d. 2013) * 1919 – Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer and explorer (d. 2008) * 1920 – Elliot Richardson, American politician (d. 1999) * 1922 - Alan Stephenson Boyd, American attorney and politician (d. 2020) * 1924 - Tatyana Lioznova, Russian movie director (d. 2011) * 1925 – Jacques Delors, French politician * 1925 - Frantz Fanon, Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer (d. 1961) * 1925 - Lola Albright, American actress (d. 2017) * 1927 - Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Russian historian and activist (d. 2018) * 1928 - Pavel Kohout, Austrian-Bohemian writer * 1929 – Rajendra Kumar, Indian actor (d. 1999) * 1930 – Chuck Daly, American basketball coach (d. 2009) * 1930 – Heinz Kubsch, German footballer (d. 1993) * 1932 – Nam June Paik, Korean video artist (d. 2006) * 1932 – Otto Schily, German politician * 1932 - Dick Giordano, American comic book artist and editor (d. 2010) * 1933 – Cormac McCarthy, American writer * 1933 - Rex Williams, English snooker player * 1934 – Uwe Johnson, German writer (d. 1984) * 1935 - Sleepy LaBeef, American musician * 1936 - Alistair MacLeod, Canadian writer (d. 2014) * 1937 - Ken Ogata, Japanese actor (d. 2008) * 1938 – Roger Hunt, English footballer * 1938 – Dame Diana Rigg, British actress * 1938 – Heinz Strehl, German footballer (d. 1986) * 1938 – Natalie Wood, American actress (d. 1981) * 1939 – Judy Chicago, American artist * 1943 - Chris Amon, New Zealand Formula One driver (d. 2016) * 1943 - Willie Mathieson, Scottish footballer * 1943 – Wendy Richard, English actress (d. 2009) * 1944 - Mel Daniels, American basketball player (d. 2015) * 1945 - Larry Craig, American politician * 1946 - Htin Kyaw, former President of Myanmar * 1947 – Gerd Binnig, German-born physicist * 1947 – Carlos Santana, Mexican-American musician * 1948 - Muse Watson, American actor * 1950 - Edward Leigh, British politician === 1951 1975 === * 1951 - Larry Black, American athlete (d. 2006) * 1953 – Dave Evans, Welsh-Australian singer (AC/DC) * 1953 - Marcia Hines, American-Australian singer, actress and television personality * 1953 - Dan Shaughnessy, American writer * 1954 - Keith Scott, Canadian guitarist * 1956 – Paul Cook, English musician (The Sex Pistols) * 1956 - Julio César Falcioni, Argentine footballer * 1958 – Billy Mays, American advertising figure (d. 2009) * 1958 - Mick MacNeil, Scottish musician (Simple Minds) * 1960 - Pedro Zerolo, Spanish lawyer and politician (d. 2014) * 1962 - Carlos Alazraqui, American actor, producer and screenwriter * 1963 - Paula Ivan, Romanian athlete * 1963 - Alexander Zhulin, Russian ice dancer * 1963 - John Simmit, British actor and stand-up comedian * 1964 – Dean Winters, American actor * 1964 - Terri Irwin, American naturalist * 1964 - Chris Cornell, American singer and musician (d. 2017) * 1965 - Abdourahman Waberi, Djiboutian writer * 1966 - Anton du Beke, British ballroom dancer * 1966 - Enrique Peña Nieto, President of Mexico * 1966 - Stone Gossard, American musician * 1967 - Courtney Taylor-Taylor, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Dandy Warhols) * 1967 – Reed Diamond, American actor * 1968 - Carlos Saldanha, Brazilian director * 1969 – Josh Holloway, American actor * 1969 - Tobi Vail, American musician * 1971 - Sandra Oh, Canadian actress * 1971 – DJ Screw, American DJ (d. 2000) * 1973 – Peter Forsberg, Swedish ice hockey player * 1973 – Haakon Magnus, Crown Prince of Norway * 1973 – Claudio Reyna, American footballer * 1973 - Roberto Orci, Mexican-American screenwriter and producer * 1975 - Erik Hagen, Norwegian footballer * 1975 - Rodolfo Arruabarrena, Argentine footballer * 1975 - Birgitta Ohlsson, Swedish politician === From 1976 === * 1977 – Alessandro Santos, Brazilian-Japanese footballer * 1978 - Will Solomon, American basketball player * 1978 - Nigel Quashie, British footballer * 1979 – Miklos Feher, Hungarian footballer (d. 2004) * 1980 – Gisele Bündchen, Brazilian model * 1982 - Antoine Vermette, Canadian ice hockey player * 1985 - John Francis Daley, American actor and screenwriter * 1986 - Osric Chau, Canadian actor and martial artist * 1987 - Nicola Benedetti, Scottish violinist * 1987 - Niall McGinn, Northern Irish footballer * 1988 – Julianne Hough, American dancer * 1988 - Stephen Strasburg, American baseball player * 1989 - Cristiano Pasquato, Italian footballer * 1989 - Javier Cortés, Mexican footballer * 1990 - Wendie Renard, French footballer * 1991 - Philipp Reiter, German mountaineer and runner * 1993 - Steven Adams, New Zealand basketball player * 1993 - Alycia Debnam-Carey, Australian actress * 1999 – Princess Alexandra of Hanover, Monegasque royalty == Deaths == === Up to 1900 === * 985 – Pope Boniface VII * 1031 – King Robert II of France (b. 972) * 1156 – Emperor Toba of Japan (1103) * 1160 – Peter Lombard, French theologian (b. c. 1100) * 1320 – King Oshin of Armenia (b. 1282) * 1351 – Margaretha Ebner, German visionary (b.1291) * 1387 – Robert IV of Artois, Count of Eu (poisoned) (b. 1356) * 1398 – Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, heir to the throne of England (b. 1374) * 1453 – Enguerrand de Monstrelet, French chronicler (b. c. 400) * 1454 – King John II of Castile (b. 1405) * 1524 – Claude of France, queen of Louis XII of France (b. 1499) * 1616 – Hugh O'Neill, 3rd Earl of Tyrone, Irish soldier (b. c. 1550) * 1704 – Peregrine White, first English child born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (b. 1620) * 1752 – Johann Christoph Pepusch, German composer (b. 1667) * 1793 - Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, French explorer (b. 1737) * 1796 - John Houstoun, Governor of Georgia (b. 1744) * 1816 – Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin, Russian poet (b. 1743) * 1866 – Bernhard Riemann, German mathematician (b. 1826) * 1870 – Jules de Goncourt, French writer (b. 1830) * 1891 - Frederick Weld, Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1823) * 1897 – Jean Ingelow, English poet (b. 1820) === 1901 2000 === * 1901 – William Cosmo Monkhouse, English poet and critic (b. 1840) * 1903 – Pope Leo XIII (b. 1810) * 1908 – Demetrius Vikelas, Greek International Olympic Committee president (b. 1835) * 1922 – Andrey Markov, Russian mathematician (b. 1856) * 1923 – Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary (b. 1878) * 1926 – Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinskiy, head of the Soviet secret police (b. 1877) * 1927 – King Ferdinand of Romania (b. 1865) * 1932 - René Bazin, French author (b. 1853) * 1937 – Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (b. 1874) * 1941 – Lew Fields, American vaudeville performer (b. 1867) * 1942 - Germaine Dulac, French movie director (b. 1882) * 1944 – Mildred Harris, American actress (b. 1901) * 1945 – Paul Valéry, French writer and poet (b. 1871) * 1951 – King Abdullah I of Jordan (b. 1882) * 1951 – Friedrich Wilhelm Hohenzollern, Crown Prince of Germany (b. 1882) * 1953 – Dumarsais Estimé, President of Haiti (b. 1900) * 1953 – Jan Struther, British writer (b. 1901) * 1955 - Calouste Gulbenkian, Armenian businessman and philanthropist (b. 1869) * 1959 – William D. Leahy, American admiral (b. 1875) * 1967 – Albert Lutuli, South African civil rights leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. c. 1898) * 1970 - Iain Macleod, English politician (b. 1913) * 1972 - Friedrich Flick, German industrialist and Nazi war criminal (b. 1893) * 1973 – Bruce Lee, American actor and martial artist (b. 1940) * 1982 – Okot p'Bitek, Ugandan poet (b. 1931) * 1983 – Frank Reynolds, American television news anchor (b. 1923) * 1986 - Stanley Rous, English FIFA President * 1987 - Richard Egan, American actor (b. 1921) * 1989 - Forrest H. Anderson, 17th Governor of Montana (b. 1920) * 1990 – Herbert Jenkins, Atlanta's longest serving police chief (b. 1907) * 1993 – Vincent Foster Jr., White House deputy counsel (b. 1945) * 1997 – John Akii-Bua, Ugandan hurdler (b. 1949) * 1999 – Sandra Gould, American actress (b. 1916) === From 2001 === * 2001 – Carlo Giuliani, Italian anti- globalist demonstrator (b. 1978) * 2003 – Nicolas Freeling, English writer (b. 1927) * 2004 – Adi Lady Lala Mara, Fiji chieftainess, wife of Kamisese Mara (b. 1931) * 2004 - Antonio Gades, Spanish dancer and choreographer (b. 1936) * 2005 – James Doohan, Canadian-born actor (b. 1920) * 2005 – Charles Chibitty, World War II Comanche code talker (b. 1921) * 2005 – Finn Gustavsen, Norwegian politician (b. 1926) * 2005 – Kayo Hatta, American movie director (b. 1958) * 2005 – Alfred Hayes, British-born wrestling announcer (b. 1928) * 2007 - Tammy Faye Messner, American televangelist (b. 1942) * 2010 - Benedikt Gröndal, Prime Minister of Iceland (b. 1924) * 2011 – Lucian Freud, German-born British painter (b. 1922) * 2013 - Helen Thomas, American journalist (b. 1920) * 2014 - Kadhal Dhandapani, Indian actor (b. 1943) * 2014 - Victor G. Atiyeh, American politician, 32nd Governor of Oregon (b. 1923) * 2014 - Klaus Schmidt, German archaeologist (b. 1953) * 2014 - Kadhal Dhandapani, Indian actor (b. 1943) * 2014 - Panna Rittikrai, Thai martial arts choreographer, actor and director (b. 1961) * 2015 - Dieter Moebius, Swiss-German electronic musician (b. 1944) * 2016 - Radu Beligan, Romanian actor, director and essayist (b. 1918) * 2016 - Dimitri, Swiss clown (b. 1935) * 2016 - Mohammed Shahid, Indian field hockey player (b. 1960) * 2016 - Pavel Sheremet, Belarusian journalist (b. 1971) * 2017 - Marco Aurélio Garcia, Brazilian politician (b. 1941) * 2017 - Chester Bennington, American singer and musician (Linkin Park) (b. 1976) * 2017 - Bernhard Kempa, German handball player and coach (b. 1920) * 2017 - Kenneth Jay Lane, American costume jewellery designer (b. 1932) * 2017 - John McCluskey, Baron McCluskey, Scottish lawyer, judge and life peer (b. 1929) * 2017 - Claude Rich, French actor (b. 1929) * 2017 - Jonathan Shurberg, American attorney and politician (b. 1963) * 2017 - Jadwiga Szubartowicz, Polish supercentenarian (b. 1905) * 2017 - Pudsey, Border Collie performing dog (b. 2005) * 2018 - Thaddeus Radzilowski, Polish-American historian and author (b. 1938) * 2018 - Christoph Westerthaler, Austrian footballer (b. 1965) * 2018 - Mitsuo Matayoshi, Japanese political activist (b. 1944) * 2019 - Sheila Dikshit, Indian politician (b. 1938) * 2019 - Ilaria Occhini, Italian actress (b. 1934) * 2019 - Peter McNamara, Australian tennis player (b. 1955) == Observances == * Independence Day in Colombia * Friend's Day in Argentina * Engineer's Day (Costa Rica) * International Chess Day == Additional information == * In 2007, the date of July 20 could have been written as 20072007, although in the US it was mostly written as 07202007. Category:Days of the year