2020 in the United States

Events from the year 2020 in the United States.
Events
January
January 3 -- A U.S. airstrike near Baghdad International Airport kills Iranian military general Qasem Soleimani, fueling the Persian Gulf crisis.
January 16 - The impeachment trial of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, starts in the U.S. Senate.
January 26 - Five-time NBA champion Kobe Bryant, his 13 year-old daughter Gianna and seven others are killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.
January 28 -- President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announce the Trump peace plan.
February
February 5
Academy Award-winning actor Kirk Douglas died in Los Angeles, aged 103.
President Donald Trump is found innocent during his impeachment trial by the U.S. Senate.
February 13 -- NASA publishes a detailed study of Arrokoth, the most distant body ever explored by a spacecraft, which New Horizons passed by on its journey through the Kuiper Belt.
February 27 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges by 1,190.95 points, or 4.4%, to close at 25,766.64, its largest one-day points decline in history. This follows several days of large falls, marking the worst week for the index since 2008, triggered by fears of the spreading coronavirus. This would cause a massive global stock market crash.
February 28 - Ambassadors of all 29 NATO Allies meet in the North Atlantic Council expressing solidarity with Turkey after 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an air strike by the Syrian government forces during the ongoing Syrian civil war.
February 29
A truce is signed between American troops, Afghan troops, and the Taliban.
March
March 3 - Several tornadoes tear through Nashville, Tennessee, killing 25.
March 5 - The I.C.C. approves the Afghanistan War Crimes Inquiry to begin, allowing for the first time for U.S. citizens to be investigated.
March 16 - Oil prices fall into the $20 range, down 10 percent from the previous day amid the coronavirus pandemic, as The Fed cuts interest rates to zero.
March 20 - Country music singer Kenny Rogers dies at the age of 81.
April
April 2 - 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic: Over 1,000,000 cases of COVID-19 are confirmed worldwide.
April 5
2019-20 coronavirus pandemic: The first case of COVID-19 in a zoo animal is reported; a four-year-old female Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York.
April 10 - 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic: The death toll from COVID-19 exceeds 100,000 globally, a ten-fold increase from March 20.
April 12-13 - At least thirty people are killed in an Easter Sunday tornado outbreak in the Southeastern United States.
April 15
2019-20 coronavirus pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 2 million worldwide.
April 18-April 19 - At least 23 people are killed at random at several places in Nova Scotia, Canada. It was the deadliest attack of its kind in Canadian history.
April 25 - 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic: The death toll from COVID-19 exceeds 200,000 globally. The U.K. becomes the fifth country to report 20,000 deaths.
April 27 - 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 3 million worldwide, while the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States passes 1 million.
May
May 1
In the aftermath of the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks, Canada bans assault-style weapons.
2019-20 coronavirus pandemic: U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorizes emergency remdesivir use to treat the sickest COVID-19 patients.
2019-20 coronavirus pandemic: The total number of recovered COVID-19 patient reached 1 million worldwide, according data from Johns Hopkins University.
May 9 - Rock and Roll pioneer Little Richard dies at the age of 87.
May 10
COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 4 million worldwide.
May 14
COVID-19 pandemic:
The global death toll from COVID-19 exceeds 300,000.
The UN warns of a global mental health crisis caused by isolation, fear, uncertainty and economic turmoil.
May 21 - COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 5 million worldwide, with 106,000 new cases recorded over the past 24 hours, the highest single-day figure so far.
May 26 - Massive riots and protests break out in the United States following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
May 27
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that Hong Kong is "no longer autonomous", as China backs a new security law that would make it a crime to undermine Beijing's authority in the territory.
COVID-19 pandemic: The U.S. death toll passes 100,000 - more Americans then were killed in the Vietnam and Korean wars combined, and approaching that of the First World War, when 116,000 Americans died in combat. The total number of cases continues to rise, although the rate is slowing.
May 30 - The first crewed flight of the Dragon 2 (initially scheduled for May 27 but delayed due to weather) is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first manned spacecraft to take off from U.S. soil since 2011.
May 31 - COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 6 million worldwide.
June
June 1 - Killing of George Floyd: After a week of rioting, U.S. President Donald Trump officially labels Antifa as a terrorist organisation.
June 2 - A US$5 billion lawsuit is filed against Alphabet Inc. and Google, saying that the company violates users' right to privacy by tracking them in Chrome's private browsing Incognito mode.
June 3 - SpaceX successfully launches and deploys 60 satellites into a low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This brings the total number of Starlink satellites in orbit to 482.
June 7 - COVID-19 pandemic: The global death toll from COVID-19 exceeds 400,000.
June 8
COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 7 million worldwide.
June 16
COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 8 million worldwide.
June 20 - Three people are killed and three more are injured during a terrorist knife attack at Forbury Gardens in Reading, Berkshire.
June 28
COVID-19 pandemic:
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 10 million worldwide. The U.S. continues to have the highest number of any country as it reaches 2.5 million, a quarter of all cases globally.
The global death toll from COVID-19 exceeds 500,000.
July
July 3 - COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 11 million worldwide.
July 8
COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 12 million worldwide.
July 13 - C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) can be seen by the naked eye and becomes one of the brightest visible to observers in the northern hemisphere since Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997.
July 14 - The United States government passes the Hong Kong Autonomy Act.
July 15 - The Twitter accounts of well known political figures, CEOs, and celebrities are hacked to promote a bitcoin scam.
July 22 - COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 15 million worldwide.
July 24 - Television host Regis Philbin dies at the age of 88.
July 25 - Hurricane Hanna makes 2 landfalls in South Texas with 90 mph winds (145 km/h) mainly in Kennedy County, Texas.
July 26 - Academy Award-winning actress Olivia de Havilland died in Paris, aged 104.
July 30 - Successful launch of NASA's Mars 2020 mission to study the habitability of Mars in preparation for future human missions.
August
August 5
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar travels to Taiwan, the highest U.S. official visit to the country in 40 years. The PRC condemns the visit.
COVID-19 pandemic: The worldwide death toll from COVID-19 passes 700,000.
August 10
COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 20 million worldwide.
August 12
It is reported that Britain's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 20.4% in the second quarter of 2020, the biggest quarterly decline since records began in 1955, and the worst economic figure of any G7 nation.
August 26 - Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos becomes the first person in history to have a net worth of $200 billion, according to Forbes.
August 28 - Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman dies of colon cancer at age 43.
August 30 - COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 25 million worldwide. India continues to record the highest daily increase of cases.
September
October
November
December
Deaths
January
January 1
Joan Benson, keyboard player (b. 1925)
Tommy Hancock, swing fiddler and bandleader (b. 1929)
Don Larsen, baseball player (b. 1929)
Roland Minson, basketball player (b. 1929)
David Stern, businessman and former NBA commissioner (b. 1942)
January 2
John Baldessari, conceptual artist (b. 1931)
Nick Fish, politician and lawyer (b. 1958)
January 6 - Mike Fitzpatrick, politician (b. 1963)
January 7
Silvio Horta, screenwriter and television producer (b. 1974)
Neil Peart, Canadian-American drummer and lyricist (b. 1952)
Elizabeth Wurtzel, writer and journalist (b. 1967)
January 8
Edd Byrnes, actor (b. 1932)
Buck Henry, actor, screenwriter and television producer (b. 1930)
January 9 - Mike Resnick, science fiction author (b. 1942)
January 15
Rocky Johnson, Canadian professional wrestler (b. 1944)
January 16 - Harry G. Haskell Jr., politician (b. 1921)
January 18 - Egil Krogh, lawyer and Republican politician (b. 1939)
January 19 - Jimmy Heath, jazz saxophonist (b. 1926)
January 23 - Jim Lehrer, journalist and novelist (b. 1934)
January 24
Leila Janah, businesswoman (b. 1982)
Pete Stark, politician (b. 1931)
January 25 - Monique van Vooren, Belgian-born American actress and dancer (b. 1927)
January 26
Kobe Bryant, professional basketball player (b. 1978)
Louis Nirenberg, Canadian-American mathematician (b. 1925)
January 27 - Jack Burns, American comedian, television writer and actor (b. 1933)
January 30 - John Andretti, racecar driver (b. 1963)
January 31 - Mary Higgins Clark, novelist (b. 1927)
February
February 2
Bernard Ebbers, Canadian-American businessman and criminal (b. 1941)
Ivan Kral, Czech-American musician (b. 1948)
February 3 - Gene Reynolds, actor, producer, writer, director (b. 1948)
February 5
Stanley Cohen, biochemist (b. 1922)
Kirk Douglas, actor, director and producer (b. 1916)
February 7 - Orson Bean, actor, comedian and producer (b. 1928)
February 8
Robert Conrad, actor (b. 1935)
Paula Kelly, actress and dancer (b. 1942)
February 11 - George Coyne, Jesuit priest and astronomer (b. 1933)
February 14 - Lynn Cohen, actress (b. 1933)
February 16 - Larry Tesler, computer scientist (b. 1945)
February 17
Ja'Net DuBois, actress, singer-songwriter (b. 1938)
Mickey Wright, golfer (b. 1935)
February 24
Katherine Johnson, mathematician (b. 1918)
Diana Serra Cary, child actress (b. 1918)
John Franzese, longtime member and underboss of the Colombo crime family (b. 1917)
February 28 - Freeman Dyson, British-born American physicist and mathematician (b. 1923)
March
March 1 - Jack Welch, business executive and writer (b. 1935)
March 2 - James Lipton, writer, lyricist and actor (b. 1926)
March 4 - Amo Houghton, politician (b. 1926)
March 6
Henri Richard, Canadian Hall of Fame ice hockey player (b. 1936)
McCoy Tyner, jazz pianist (b. 1938)
March 7 - Mart Crowley, playwright (b. 1935)
March 9 - Anton Coppola, conductor (b. 1917)
March 11 - Charles Wuorinen, composer (b. 1938)
March 12 - Tonie Marshall, French-American actress, screenwriter, and film director (b. 1951)
March 15 - Richard L. Hanna, politician (b. 1951)
March 16 - Stuart Whitman, actor (b. 1928)
March 17
Roger Mayweather, professional boxer and trainer (b. 1961)
Lyle Waggoner, actor (b. 1935)
Alfred Worden, astronaut (b. 1932)
March 20 - Kenny Rogers, country singer and songwriter (b. 1938)
March 24
Stuart Gordon, film director (b. 1947)
Terrence McNally, playwright (b. 1938
March 27 - Joseph Lowery, minister (b. 1921)
March 28
Tom Coburn, politician (b. 1948)
Jan Howard, country singer (b. 1929)
March 29
Philip Warren Anderson, Nobel physicist (b. 1923)
Joe Diffie, country music singer (b. 1958)
March 30 - Bill Withers, singer-songwriter (b. 1938)
March 31
Julie Bennett, actress (b. 1932)
Wallace Roney, musician (b. 1960)
April
April 1
Ellis Marsalis Jr., jazz pianist (b. 1934)
Adam Schlesinger, singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1967)
April 5 - Margaret Burbidge, English-born American astrophysicist (b. 1919)
April 6
Helene Aylon, multimedia ecofeminist artist (b. 1931)
James Drury, actor (b. 1934)
Al Kaline, baseball player (b. 1934)
Fred Singer, physicist (b. 1924)
April 7
Allen Garfield, actor (b. 1939)
John Prine, singer-songwriter (b. 1946)
April 9 - Phyllis Lyon, feminists and gay-rights activists (b. 1924)
April 15
Allen Daviau, cinematographer (b. 1942)
Brian Dennehy, actor and writer (b. 1938)
Lee Konitz, jazz composer and alto saxophonist (b. 1927)
April 16
Gene Deitch, animator and comics artist (b. 1924)
Howard Finkel, wrestling ring announcer (b. 1950)
Jane Dee Hull, politician (b. 1935)
April 18 - Paul H. O'Neill, businessman and politician (b. 1935)
April 21 - Donald Kennedy, biologist (b. 1931)
April 22 - Shirley Knight, actress (b. 1936)
April 23 - James M. Beggs, 6th Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (b. 1926)
April 27
Bernard Gersten, theatre producer (b. 1923)
Lynn Harrell, cellist (b. 1944)
April 30 - Sam Lloyd, actor (b. 1963)
May
May 2 - Cady Groves, singer and songwriter (b. 1989)
May 4
Jean Erdman, dancer (b. 1916)
Michael McClure, writer (b. 1932)
Lorne Munroe, classical musician (b. 1924)
Don Shula, football player and coach (b. 1930)
May 8
Roy Horn, German-American magician duo (b. 1944)
Byron Mallott, politician (b. 1943)
May 9 - Little Richard, singer-songwriter and musician (b. 1932)
May 10 - Betty Wright, singer (b. 1953)
May 11 - Jerry Stiller, comedian and actor (b. 1927)
May 14
Phyllis George, businesswoman, actress, and sportscaster (b. 1949)
Bob Watson, baseball player and coach (b. 1946)
May 15 - Fred Willard, actor and comedian (b. 1933)
May 16 - Lynn Shelton, movie director (b. 1965)
May 17
Shad Gaspard, professional wrestler and actor (b. 1981)
Monique Mercure, Canadian actress (b. 1930)
May 18 - Ken Osmond, actor and police officer (b. 1943)
May 19
Richard Anuszkiewicz, painter and sculptor (b. 1930)
Annie Glenn, advocate (b. 1920)
Ravi Zacharias, Indian-born Canadian-American Christian apologist (b. 1946)
May 21 - Oliver E. Williamson, economist and Nobel Prize winner (b. 1932)
May 22
Saturn, alligator residing in the Moscow Zoo (b. 1936)
Jerry Sloan, basketball player and head coach (b. 1942)
May 24 - Jimmy Cobb, jazz drummer (b. 1929)
May 25 - George Floyd, African American man who was a victim of police violence in the United States, killed by Derek Chauvin (b. 1973)
May 26 - Richard Herd, actor (b. 1932)
May 27
Sam Johnson, politician (b. 1930)
Larry Kramer, writer and LGBT rights activist (b. 1935)
Bob Kulick, guitarist and record producer (b. 1950)
May 28 - Lennie Niehaus, saxophonist and composer (b. 1929)
May 30 - Bobby Morrow, athlete (b. 1935)
June
June 1
Silver Donald Cameron, Canadian journalist and environmental writer (b. 1937)
Mary Pat Gleason, actress (b. 1950)
June 2 - Wes Unseld, basketball player and coach (b. 1946)
June 3 - Johnny Majors, college football player, college football coach (b. 1935)
June 4 - Pete Rademacher, heavyweight boxer and Olympic champion (b. 1928)
June 5 - George V. Murry, African-American Catholic bishop (b. 1948)
June 8 - Bonnie Pointer, singer (b. 1950)
June 10
Rosita Fornes Cuban-American actress, singer, vedette (b. 1923)
Mr. Wrestling II, American professional wrestler (b. 1934)
June 11
Dennis O'Neil, comic book writer (b. 1939)
Mel Winkler, voice actor (b. 1941)
June 12 - William S. Sessions, 4th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (b. 1930)
June 13 - Dick Garmaker, basketball player (b. 1932)
June 17 - Jean Kennedy Smith, diplomat (b. 1928)
June 19 - Ian Holm, actor (b. 1931)
June 22 - Joel Schumacher, movie director (b. 1939)
June 25 - Joe Sinnott, comic book artist (b. 1926)
June 26
Kelly Asbury, movie director and animator (b. 1960)
Milton Glaser, graphic designer (b. 1929)
June 27 - Freddy Cole, jazz singer and pianist (b. 1931)
June 28 - Rudolfo Anaya, writer (b. 1937)
June 29
Johnny Mandel, composer (b. 1925)
Carl Reiner, actor, movie director and comedian (b. 1922)
June 30 - Dan Hicks, actor (b. 1951)
July
July 1 - Hugh Downs, broadcaster and television personality (b. 1921)
July 5 - Cleveland Eaton, musician (b. 1939)
July 6
Charlie Daniels, country singer-songwriter and musician (b. 1936)
Ronald Graham, mathematician (b. 1935)
July 8
Wayne Mixson, politician (b. 1922)
Naya Rivera, actress, model and singer (b. 1987)
July 12 - Kelly Preston, actress and model (b. 1962)
July 13 - Grant Imahara, engineer and television host (b. 1970)
July 16 - Phyllis Somerville, actress (b. 1943)
July 17
John Lewis, politician and civil rights leader (b. 1940)
C. T. Vivian, writer and activist (b. 1924)
July 22
Charles Evers, civil rights activist (b. 1922)
Joan Feynman, astrophysicist (b. 1927)
July 23 - Jacqueline Scott, actress (b. 1932)
July 24 - Regis Philbin, actor, singer, and media personality (b. 1931)
July 25 - John Saxon, actor (b. 1935)
July 26
Olivia de Havilland, British-American actress (b. 1916)
Bill English, computer engineer (b. 1929)
July 28 - Joe E. Kernan, 48th Governor of Indiana (b. 1946) He was 74.
July 30
Herman Cain, businessman and politician (b. 1945)
August
August 1
Wilford Brimley, American actor and singer (b. 1934)
Reni Santoni, actor (b. 1939)
August 2 - Leon Fleisher, American pianist (b. 1928)
August 3 - Shirley Ann Grau, American writer (b. 1929)
August 4
Frances E. Allen, American computer scientist (b. 1932)
Doris Buffett, philanthropist (b. 1928)
August 5 - Pete Hamill, journalist, novelist, essayist, editor and educator (b. 1935)
References