July 20

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 Verendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan.
1799 - Tekle Giyorgis I starts the first of his five reigns as Emperor of Ethiopia.
1807 - Nicephore Niepce 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 - Jose Felix 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 - Stefan Johann Stefansson, Prime Minister of Iceland (d. 1980)
1895 - Laszlo 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 Cesar 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 Pena 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 Bundchen, 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 Cortes, 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 - Rene 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 Valery, 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 Estime, 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 Grondal, 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 Aurelio 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.