August 20

Friday 20, 2004:

Talk show host Regis Philbin breaks the record for Most Hours on Camera, with 15,188.

Thursday 20, 1998:

1998 U.S. embassy bombings: The United States military launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum is destroyed in the attack.

Wednesday 20, 1997:

Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people killed, 15 kidnapped.

Friday 20, 1993:

After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Peace Accords were signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the next month.

Tuesday 20, 1991:

Collapse of the Soviet Union: More than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup that deposed President Mikhail Gorbachev. Estonia reclaimed its indenpendence and seceded from the Soviet Union. Estonia had been occupied by the Soviets for more than 50 years.

Sunday 20, 1989:

1989- In Beverly Hills, California, Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot and kill their wealthy parents.

Saturday 20, 1988:

Peru becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.

Wednesday 20, 1986:

In Edmond, Oklahoma, US Postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.

Friday 20, 1982:

Lebanese Civil War: A multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon.

Saturday 20, 1977:

Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.

Wednesday 20, 1975:

Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.

Tuesday 20, 1968:

200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to end the "Prague Spring" of political liberalization.

Saturday 20, 1960:

Senegal breaks from the Mali federation, declaring independence.

Saturday 20, 1955:

In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria, raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.

Tuesday 20, 1940:

Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded in Mexico City by an assassin's ice-ax. He will die the next day.

Friday 20, 1926:

Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon H?s? Ky?kai (NHK) is established.

Friday 20, 1920:

The first commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), begins operations in Detroit, Michigan.

Thursday 20, 1914:

World War I: German forces occupy Brussels.

Monday 20, 1900:

Japan's primary school law is amended to provide for four years of mandatory schooling.

Sunday 20, 1882:

Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.

Tuesday 20, 1833:

Nat Turner leads his revolt against the Southern plantation owners of Southampton County, Virginia

Monday 20, 1804:

Lewis and Clark Expedition: The "Corps of Discovery", exploring the Louisiana Purchase, suffers its only death when Sergeant Charles Floyd dies, apparently from acute appendicitis.

Wednesday 20, 1794:

American troops force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi warriors into a disorganized retreat.

Friday 20, 917:

Battle of Anchialus: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria invades Thrace and drives the Byzantines out.

Saturday 20, 636:

Battle of Yarmuk: Arab forces led by Khalid bin Walid take control of Syria and Palestine away from the Byzantine Empire, marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia.

More on August, 20

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