On November 20th...

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1686 Physicist Otto von Guericke was born.

1761 Pope Pius VIII was born.

1789 New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

1817 The First Seminole War began.

1841 Canadian statesman Wilfrid Laurier was born.

1858 Novelist Selma Lagerlöf was born.

1866 The Grand Army of the Republic held its first national convention.
1866 Howard University was founded.
1866 Pierre Lalemont patented the rotary crank bicycle.
1866 Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner of professional baseball, was born.

1884 Socialist Party author and presidential candidate Norman Thomas was born.

1888 William Bundy patented the timecard clock.

1889 Astronomer Edwin Hubble was born.

1900 Comic strip artist Chester Gould was born.

1908 Journalist Alistair Cooke was born.

1910 Novelist Leo Tolstoy died.

1914 The U.S. State Department began requiring photographs for passports.
1914 Author Charles Berlitz was born.

1915 Hu Yaobang, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China was born.

1919 The first municipally owned airport in the United States opened in Tucson, Arizona.

1923 Garrett Morgan was granted a patent for his traffic signal.

1925 American politician Robert F. Kennedy was born.

1928 The first national Future Farmers of America convention was held in Kansas City, Missouri.

1932 Actor Richard Dawson was born.

1939 Comedian Dick Smothers was born.

1942 Joseph Biden, Vice-President of the United States, was born.
1942 Singer Norman Greenbaum was born.

1943 United States forces landed on the island of Tarawa.

1945 The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials began.

1946 Guitarist Duane Allman was born.

1947 Princess Elizabeth of Great Britain married Philip Mountbatten.
1947 Meet the Press made its television debut on NBC.
1947 Musician Joe Walsh was born.

1953 Scott Crossfield became the first person to break Mach 2.

1956 Actress Bo Derek was born.

1959 The European Free Trade Association was established.
1959 Discoverer VIII was launched into polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
1959 The United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Children's Rights.
1959 The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception was dedicated.

1969 Alcatraz Island was seized by militant Native Americans.

1970 The United Nations General Assembly voted to accept the membership of the Chinese People's Republic.

1974 The United States filed an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T.

1975 Spanish General Francisco Franco died.

1977 Anwar Sadat became the first Egyptian President to address the Israeli Knesset.

1979 The first artificial blood transfusion in the United States was performed at the University of Minnesota Hospital.

1984 SETI was founded.

1985 Microsoft Windows 1.0 was released.

2006 Film director Robert Altman died.

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This page was last updated on November 20, 2017.