September 20:: Historical Events

Events

• 451 - The Battle of Chalons, in North Eastern France. Flavius Aetius' victory over Attila the Hun in a day of combat, considered to be the largest battle in the ancient world.


• 1187 - Saladin begins the Siege of Jerusalem.


• 1378 - Cardinal Robert of Geneva, called by some the Butcher of Cesena, is elected as Avignon Pope Clement VII, beginning the Papal schism.


• 1519 - Ferdinand Magellan - set sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with about 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe.


• 1596 - Diego de Montemayor founded the city of Monterrey in New Spain.


• 1633 - Galileo Galilei is tried before the Inquisition for teaching that the Earth orbits the Sun.


• 1697 - The Treaty of Rijswijk was signed by France, England, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic ending the Nine Years' War (1688-97).


• 1737 - Runner Edward Marshall completes his journey in the Walking Purchase forcing the cession of 1.2 million acres (4,860 km²) of Lenape-Delaware tribal land to the Pennsylvania Colony.


• 1792 - French troops stop allied invasion of France, during the War of the First Coalition at Valmy.


• 1835 - Farroupilha's Revolution begins in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.


• 1848 - The American Association for the Advancement of Science was created.


• 1854 - Battle of Alma: British and French troops defeat Russians in the Crimea.


• 1857 - The Indian Mutiny ends with the recapture of Delhi by troops loyal to the East India Company.


• 1860 - The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII of the United Kingdom) visits the United States.


• 1863 - American Civil War: The Battle of Chickamauga ends.


• 1870 - Bersaglieri corps enters Rome through Porta Pia and completes the unification of Italy; see capture of Rome.


• 1871 - Bishop John Coleridge Patteson martyred on the island of Nukapu a Polynesian outlier island now in the Temotu province of the Solomon Islands. He was the first bishop of Melanesia.


• 1879 - Cliftonville Football Club, the oldest club in Ireland, is founded.


• 1881 - Chester A. Arthur is inaugurated as the 21st President of the United States following the assassination of James Garfield.


• 1891 - The first gasoline-powered car debuts in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States.


• 1906 - Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania is launched at the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Newcastle, England.


• 1917 - Paraguay becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.


• 1920 - Foundation of the Spanish Legion.


• 1930 - Syro-Malankara Catholic Church was formed by Archbishop Mar Ivanios


• 1939 - A German Messerschmitt Bf 109 is shot down by Fairey Battle gunner Sgt. F. Letchard during a patrol near Aachen. This is the RAF's first aerial victory of the Second World War.


• 1942 - Holocaust in Letychiv, Ukraine. In the course of two days German SS murders at least 3,000 Jews


• 1946 - The first Cannes Film Festival is held.


• 1954 - New Zealand's Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents reports just ten days after concluding hearings.


• 1962 - James Meredith, an African-American, is barred from entering the University of Mississippi.


• 1967 - The RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 is launched at John Brown & Company, Clydebank, Scotland. It is operated by the Cunard Line.


• 1970 - Syrian tanks roll into Jordan in response to continued fighting between Jordan and the fedayeen. The Jordanians knock out 30 of the Syrian tanks.


• 1973 - Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in battle-of-sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome in Houston, Texas.


• 1976 - Turkish Airlines Boeing 727 hit Taurus Mountains, outskirt of Karatepe, Osmaniye, Turkey, killing all 155 passengers and crew.


• 1977 - The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is admitted to the United Nations


• 1979 - Lee Iacocca is elected president of the Chrysler Corporation.


• 1979 - A coup d'état in the Central African Empire overthrows Emperor Bokasa I.


• 1979 - The Punjab wing of the Unity Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India (Marxist-Leninist) formally splits and constitutes a parallel UCCRI(ML).


• 1979 - Assassination of French left-wing militant Pierre Goldman.


• 1982 - National Football League players begin a 57-day strike.


• 1984 - A suicide bomber in a car attacks the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing twenty-two people.


• 1988 - Boston Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs becomes the first player to get 200 hits in six consecutive seasons.


• 1990 - South Ossetia declares its independence from Georgia.


• 1998 - Baltimore Orioles third baseman Cal Ripken, Jr. chooses to sit out the Orioles' game against the New York Yankees, ending his record streak for consecutive Major League Baseball games played at 2,632.


• 1999 - The hit series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit airs.


• 2000 - The British MI6 Secret Intelligence Service building was attacked by a Russian-built Mark 22 anti-tank missile


• 2001 - In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American People president George W. Bush declares "war on terror".


• 2002 - Kolka-Karmadon rock/ice slide started.


• 2003 - A referendum is held in Latvia to decide the country's accession to the European Union.


• 2003 - Maldives civil unrest: the death of prisoner Hassan Evan Naseem sparks a day of rioting in Malé.