On July 20th...

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1031 King Robert II of France died.

1519 Pope Innocent IX was born.

1734 William Maclay, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born.

1738 Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye reached the western shore of Lake Michigan.

1804 Comparative anatomist Richard Owen was born.

1810 Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada (now Colombia), declared their independence from Spain.

1822 Gregor Mendel, pioneer in the field of genetics, was born.

1861 The Congress of the Confederate States of America began its first session.

1871 British Columbia became a Canadian province.

1873 Aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont was born.

1878 Frank Hadow won the men's singles championship at Wimbledon.

1890 King George II of Greece was born.

1893 Lottie Dod and Joshua Pim won their respective singles championships at Wimbledon.

1901 Morocco signed an agreement with France fixing Morocco's frontier with Algeria.

1903 The first Ford Model A was sold.
1903 Pope Leo XIII died.

1907 A train crash on the Pere Marquette Railroad nearSalem, Michigan, killed 30 persons and injured 70 others.

1912 Philadelphia Phillie Sherry Magee stole home twice in one game.

1917 U.S. Secretary of War Newton Baker drew the first number of the World War I draft.

1919 Mountain climber Edmund Hillary was born.

1920 U. S. government official Elliot Richardson was born.

1921 Alice Mary Robertson became the first woman to preside over the floor of the U. S. House of Representatives.

1922 Togo was made a mandate of the League of Nations.

1923 Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa was killed.

1924 Ottavio Bottecchia won the Tour de France.

1926 A convention of the Methodist Church voted to allow women to become ministers.

1927 King Ferdinand of Romania died.

1932 Police fired tear gas on World War I veterans who were attempting to march to the White House.

1935 A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan, Italy, to Frankfurt, Germany, crashed into a Swiss mountain, killing 13 persons.

1937 Inventor Guglielmo Marconi died.

1938 Actress Natalie Wood was born.

1940 Billboard published its first singles record chart (#1 was "I'll Never Smile Again" by Tommy Dorsey).

1942 The first detachment of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps began basic training.
1942 The Legion of Merit Medal was authorized by the U. S. Congress.

1944 German generals tried to kill Adolf Hitler.
1944 Nelson Potter became the first pitcher to be suspended for throwing spitballs.

1946 Singer Kim Carnes was born.

1947 About 93,000 Dutch troops launched an offensive against Indonesian nationalists.
1947 Jean Robic won the Tour de France.
1947 Musician Carlos Santana was born.

1948 Syngman Rhee was elected as the first President of the Republic of Korea.

1951 King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem..

1956 France recognized Tunisia's independence.

1957 Jacques Anquetil won the Tour de France.

1958 An explosion in a hydroelectric project in Yugoslavia killed 30 persons.
1958 Dow Finsterwald won the PGA Championship.
1958 TV pitchman Billy Mays was born.

1960 The U.S. Navy reported the firing of the first two Polaris missiles from a submerged submarine.

1963 A total solar eclipse was visible from Japan to the mid-Atlantic.
1963 The British ore carrier Tritonica collided with the British freighter Roonagh Head in the St. Lawrence River near Quebec, Ontario, Canada, killing 33 Tritonica crewmen.
1963 Rockslides caused by flash floods swept away two mountain resort hotels and many tourist tents in Pahalgam, India, and killed at least 200 people.
1963 Mary Mills won the U. S. Women's Open Golf Championship.

1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the Moon.
1969 Eddy Merckx won the Tour de France.

1973 Actor Bruce Lee died.

1975 Sandra Palmer won the U. S. Women's Open Golf Championship.
1975 Bernard Thevent won the Tour de France.

1976 Viking 1 became the first U. S. spacecraft to land on Mars.
1976 Hank Aaron hit the 755th (and final) home run of his career.

1980 Tom Watson won the British Open.
1980 Joop Zoetemelk won the Tour de France.

1985 Divers found the wreck of the Spanish galleon Atocha.
1985 Actor John Francis Daley was born.

1990 Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., retired from the Supreme Court of the United States.

1992 Václav Havel resigned as president of Czechoslovakia.
1992 Nick Faldo won the British Open.

1993 Vince Foster, Deputy White House Counsel, was found dead.

1997 Justin Leonard won the British Open.

2002 Bartenders doing tricks with fire started a fire inside a night club in Lima, Peru, that killed 25 persons and injured 100 others.

2003 Two bombs exploded outside a tax office in Nice, France, injuring 16 persons.
2003 Ben Curtis won the British Open.

2005 Actor James Doohan died.

2007 TV evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker died.

2008 Pádraig Harrington won the British Open.

2012 A gunman killed 12 persons and injured 59 at a Dark Knight movie premiere in Aurora, Colorado.
2012 A bus accident in Nayarit, Mexico, killed 21 persons and injured 29 others.

2014 Rory McIlroy won the British Open.

2015 Zach Johnson won the British Open.

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This page was last updated on September 02, 2018.