20 December History
- 69 - Vespians's supporters enter Rome and discover Vitellius in hiding. He is dragged through the streets before being brutally murdered.
- 1355 - Stephen Urosh IV of Serbia dies while marching to attack Constantinople.
- 1802 - The United States buys the Louisiana territory from France.
- 1860 - South Carolina secedes from the Union.
- 1861 - English transports loaded with 8,000 troops set sail for Canada so that troops are available if the "Trent Affair" is not settled without war.
- 1924 - Adolf Hitler is released from prison after serving less than one year of a five year sentence for treason.
- 1930 - Thousands of Spaniards sign a revolutionary manifesto.
- 1933 - The German government announces 400,000 citizens are to be sterilized because of hereditary defects.
- 1938 - First electronic television system is patented.
- 1941 - The Flying Tigers, American pilots in China, enter combat against the Japanese over Kunming.
- 1943 - Soviet forces halt a German army trying to relieve the besieged city of Stalingrad.
- 1946 - Viet Minh and French forces fight fiercely in Annamite section of Hanoi.
- 1948 - U.S. Supreme Court announces that it has no jurisdiction to hear the appeals of Japanese war criminals sentenced by the International Military Tribunal.
- 1960 - National Liberation Front is formed by guerrillas fighting the Diem regime in South Vietnam.
- 1962 - In its first free election in 38 years, the Dominican Republic chooses leftist Juan Bosch Gavino as president.
- 1963 - Four thousand cross the Berlin Wall to visit relatives under a 17-day Christmas accord.
- 1989 - U.S. troops invade Panama to oust General Manuel Noriega and replace him with Guillermo Endara.
20 December Birthdays
- 1868 - Harvey Firestone, industrialist and tire maker.
- 1881 - Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers.