20 November History
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).