June 20 is the 171st day of the year (172nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 194 days remaining.

Events

Before 1900

• 451- The Battle of Chalons, Flavius Aetius' victory over Attila the Hun.
• 1214 - University of Oxford receives its charter.
• 1631 - The sack of Baltimore: the Irish village of Baltimore was attacked by Algerian pirates.
• 1685 - Monmouth Rebellion: The Duke of Monmouth declared himself King of England at Bridgwater.
• 1756 - English garrison imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
• 1782 - The U.S. Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States.
• 1789 - Deputies of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath
• 1791 - The Flight to Varennes began.
• 1819 - The US vessel Savannah arrives at Liverpool. She is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, most of the journey was made under sail.
• 1837 - Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne.
• 1862 - Barbu Catargiu is assassinated.
• 1863 - West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.
• 1877 - Alexander Graham Bell installs world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton Ontario.
• 1893 - Lizzie Borden is found innocent of murdering her stepmother and father.

1900-1999

• 1919 - 150 die at the Teatro Yaguez fire, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
• 1939 - Benny Goodman's Song School ends its radio series.
• 1948 - Toast of the Town, later The Ed Sullivan Show, debuts.
• 1956 - A Venezuelan Super-Constellation crashed in Atlantic Ocean off Ashbury Park, New Jersey killing 74 people
• 1960 - Independence of Mali and Senegal.
• 1963 - "Hotline" established between Soviet Union and United States.
• 1966 - Canada sells 336 million bushels of wheat to Soviet Union.
• 1969 - Jacques Chaban-Delmas becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1977 - Oil begins to flow through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS).
• 1980 - Roberto Duran starts his classic boxing trilogy with Sugar Ray Leonard by defeating him in Canada by a decision in 15 rounds, to gain the WBC world Welterweight championship.
• 1981 - Iran is taken over by what is now known as the Islamic Republic of Iran after two and a half years of intimidation.
• 1983 - LZW patent filed in USA.
• 1990 - Asteroid Eureka discovered.
• 1991 - German parliament decides to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.
• 1998 - The Los Angeles radio station KROQ opens the sixth annual of the KROQ Weenie Roast with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Blink-182, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Creed, The Crystal Method, Deftones, Everclear, Harvey Danger, Madness, Marcy Playground, Ozomatli, The Prodigy, Save Ferris and Third Eye Blind.

2000-2099

• 2001 - Pervez Musharraf becomes president of Pakistan
• 2001 - Andrea Yates drowns her children in a bathtub and admits to the crime. She would be sentenced to life in prison.
• 2003 - LZW patent expires in USA.
• 2003 - Bounce premieres at the Goodman Theatre.
• 2003 - Formation of Wikimedia Foundation announced.

Births

1500-1899

• 1561 - Sigismund, king of Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (d. 1632)
• 1634 - Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy (d. 1675)
• 1756 - Joseph Martin Kraus, composer
• 1763 - Wolfe Tone, Irish patriot
• 1771 - Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, philanthropist, entrepreneur (d. 1820)
• 1797 - Sophie (Frémiet) Rude , French artist (d. 1867)
• 1808 - Samson Raphael Hirsch, rabbi (d. 1888)
• 1819 - Jacques Offenbach, composer (d. 1880)
• 1887 - Kurt Schwitters, painter (Dadaist), writer (d. 1948)
• 1899 - Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance in WW II.

1900-1999

• 1905 - Lillian Hellman, playwright (d. 1984)
• 1909 - Errol Flynn, actor (d. 1959)
• 1912 - Anthony Buckeridge, author (d. 2004)
• 1924 - Chet Atkins, country guitar player
• 1931 - Olympia Dukakis, actress
• 1931 - Martin Landau, actor
• 1936 - Danny Aiello, actor
• 1937 - Donald Sullivan, priest
• 1940 - Eugen Drewermann, theologian
• 1940 - John Mahoney, actor
• 1941 - Ulf Merbold, physicist and astronaut
• 1941 - Ilse Ritter , actress
• 1942 - Brian Wilson, bass player and singer for The Beach Boys
• 1944 - Cheryl Holdridge, actress and Mouseketeer
• 1945 - Shekhar Mehta , racer, winner of the Safari Rally
• 1945 - Anne Murray, singer
• 1946 - Bob Vila, handyman
• 1947 - Dolores "LaLa" Brooks, singer, member of the Crystals
• 1949 - Lionel Richie, musician
• 1951 - Tress MacNeille, voice actress (The Simpsons, Animaniacs, Rugrats)
• 1952 - John Goodman, actor
• 1953 - Cyndi Lauper, singer
• 1954 - Michael Anthony, musician, Van Halen
• 1960 - John Taylor, musician, Duran Duran
• 1967 - Nicole Kidman, actress
• 1970 - Prince Moulay Rachid, prince of Morocco
• 1971 - Jeordie White, bassist for Marilyn Manson from 1990 – 2002
• 1985 - Doug Sauve , Lord of Cambridgeshire

Deaths

800-1899

• 840 - Louis the Pious, King of the Franks, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (b. 778)
• 1597 - Willem Barentsz, navigator, dies in the Arctic
• 1787 - Karl Friedrich Abel, German baroque composer
• 1820 - Manuel Belgrano, Argentine lawyer, politician, military and creator of Argentina's flag.
• 1837 - William IV of the United Kingdom

1900-1999

• 1901 - Queen Victoria, queen of the United Kingdom
• 1945 - Bruno Frank, author
• 1947 - Bugsy Siegel, gangster
• 1993 - Vince Foster, Deputy White House Counsel for President Clinton
• 1995 - Emil Cioran, Romanian-born French philosopher and essayist
• 1998 - Conrad Schumann, East German borderguard, most famous escapee from East Germany.
• 1999 - Clifton Fadiman , author

2000-2099

• 2002 - Erwin Chargaff, biochemist
• 2002 - Tinus Osendarp, Dutch sprinter
• 2003 - Bob Stump, Arizona Congressman

Holidays and observances

• Roman Empire - Festival in honor of Summanus
• Ancient Latvia - Zalu Diena
• UNHCR World Refugee Day
• Flag Day in Argentina (1938)

External links

• BBC: On This Day

June 19 - June 21 - May 20 - July 20 -- listing of all days