20 November History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 269    -    Diocletian is proclaimed emperor of Numerian in Asia Minor by his soldiers. He had been the commander of the emperor's bodyguard.
  • 1695    -    Zumbi dos Palmares, the Brazilian leader of a 100-year-old rebel slave group, is killed in an ambush.
  • 1700    -    Sweden's 17-year-old King Charles XII defeats the Russians at Narva.
  • 1903    -    In Cheyenne, Wyoming, 42-year-old hired gunman Tom Horn is hanged for the murder of 14-year-old Willie Nickell.
  • 1914    -    Bulgaria proclaims its neutrality in the First World War.
ADVERTISEMENTS
  • 1928    -    Mrs. Glen Hyde becomes the first woman to dare the Grand Canyon rapids in a scow (a flat-bottomed boat that is pushed along with a pole).
  • 1931    -    Japan and China reject the League of Council terms for Manchuria at Geneva.
  • 1943    -    U.S. Army and Marine soldiers attack the Japanese-held islands of Makin and Tarawa, respectively, in the Central Pacific.
  • 1945    -    The Nazi war crime trials begin at Nuremberg.
  • 1947    -    Princess Elizabeth (future Queen Elizabeth II) marries Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in Westminster Abbey.
  • 1950    -    U.S. troops push to the Yalu River, within five miles of Manchuria.
ADVERTISEMENTS
  • 1955    -    The Maryland National Guard is ordered desegregated.
  • 1962    -    President John F. Kennedy bars religious or racial discrimination in federally funded housing.
  • 1967    -    U.S. census reports the population at 200 million.
  • 1971    -    The United States announces it will give Turkey $35 million for farmers who agree to stop growing opium poppies.
  • 1974    -    The United States files an antitrust suit to break up ATT.
  • 1978    -    In Jonestown, Guyana, American Rev. Jim Jones leads his followers in a mass suicide.
ADVERTISEMENTS
  • 1982    -    South Africa backs down on a plan to install black rule in neighboring Namibia.

  • 20 November Birthdays

  • 1858    -    Selma Lagerdorf, Swedish novelist (The Story of Gosta Berling).
  • 1889    -    Edwin Hubble, American astronomer who proved that there are other galaxies far from our own.
  • 1908    -    Alistair Cooke, English journalist, television host.
  • 1916    -    Thomas McGrath, poet and novelist.
  • 1923    -    Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize-winning South African novelist.
  • 1925    -    Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General, New York senator and brother of President John F. Kennedy. He was assassinated while running for president.
  • 1936    -    Don DeLillo, author (White Noise, Libra).