July 20

### 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.

### 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, writer 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 writer, 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

### 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 writer (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 writer (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.