Today in History, October 20: 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. 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, settles the Canada–United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length. 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, a mammoth retreat undertaken by the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party a year prior, 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 murdered in the Kragujevac massacre. 1944 – American 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. 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 – Peoples Republic of China launches simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line, igniting the Sino-Indian War. 1968 – Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. 1973 – Saturday Night Massacre: United States 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. 1977 – Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrds plane crashes. 2011 – Libyan Civil War: National Transitional Council rebel forces capture ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte and kill him shortly thereafter.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 18:35:38 +0000
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