October 20 - Events

Events

• 1548 – The city of Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Our Lady of Peace) is founded by Alonso de Mendoza by appointment of the king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.
• 1572 – Relief of Goes, Cristóbal de Mondragón with 3000 soldiers of the Spanish Tercios, release the siege of the city.
• 1720 – Caribbean pirate Calico Jack is captured by the Royal Navy.
• 1740 – Maria Theresa takes the throne of Austria. France, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony refuse to honour the Pragmatic Sanction and the War of the Austrian Succession begins.
• 1781 – Patent of Toleration, providing limited freedom of worship, is approved in Habsburg Monarchy.
• 1803 – The United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase.
• 1818 – The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the Canada – United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.
• 1827 – Battle of Navarino – a combined Turkish and Egyptian armada is defeated by British, French, and Russian naval force in the port of Navarino in Pylos, Greece.
• 1873 – Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.
• 1883 – Peru and Chile sign the Treaty of Ancón, by which the Tarapacá province is ceded to the latter, bringing an end to Peru's involvement in the War of the Pacific.
• 1904 – Chile and Bolivia sign the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, delimiting the border between the two countries.
• 1910 – The hull of the RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic, is launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
• 1935 – The Long March ends.
• 1939 – Pope Pius XII publishes his first major encyclical entitled Summi Pontificatus.
• 1941 – World War II: Thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in German-occupied Serbia are killed in the Kragujevac massacre.
• 1943 – The cargo vessel Sinfra is attacked by Allied aircraft at Suda Bay, Crete, and sunk. 2,098 Italian prisoners of war drown with it.
• 1944 – The Soviet Army and Yugoslav Partisans liberate Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia
• 1944 – Liquid natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland, then explodes; the explosion and resulting fire level 30 blocks and kill 130.
• 1944 – General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he commands an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.
• 1947 – The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.
• 1947 – United States of America and Pakistan establish diplomatic relations for the first time.
• 1951 – The "Johnny Bright Incident" occurs in Stillwater, Oklahoma
• 1952 – Governor Evelyn Baring declares a state of emergency in Kenya and begins arresting hundreds of suspected leaders of the Mau Mau Uprising, including Jomo Kenyatta, the future first President of Kenya.
• 1961 – The Soviet Union performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf class submarine.
• 1962 – China launches simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line, beginning the Sino-Indian War.
• 1968 – Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
• 1970 – Siad Barre declares Somalia a socialist state.
• 1971 – The Nepal Stock Exchange collapses.
• 1973 – "Saturday Night Massacre": President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.
• 1973 – The Sydney Opera House opens.
• 1976 – The ferry George Prince is struck by a ship while crossing the Mississippi River between Destrehan and Luling, Louisiana. Seventy-eight passengers and crew die and only 18 people aboard the ferry survive.
• 1981 – Two police officers and an armored car guard are killed during an armed robbery in Rockland County, NY, carried out by members of the Black Liberation Army and Weather Underground.
• 1982 – During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.
• 1991 – The Oakland Hills firestorm kills 25 and destroys 3,469 homes and apartments, causing more than $2 billion in damage.
• 1991 – A 6.8 M_w earthquake strikes the Uttarkashi region of India, killing more than 1,000 people.