Historical Events on 20 Mar

Historical Events on 20 Mar

1600 - The Linköping Bloodbath takes place on Maundy Thursday in Linköping, Sweden.
1602 - The Dutch East India Company is established.
1616 - Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment.
1739 - Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne.
1760 - The "Great Fire" of Boston, Massachusetts destroys 349 buildings.
1815 - After escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule.
1848 - Revolutions of 1848 in the German states: King Ludwig I of Bavaria abdicates.
1852 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is published.
1856 - Costa Rican troops rout Walker's soldiers.
1861 - An earthquake completely destroys Mendoza, Argentina.
1883 - The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property is signed.
1913 - Sung Chiao-jen, a founder of the Chinese Nationalist Party, is wounded in an assassination attempt and dies 2 days later.
1914 - In New Haven, Connecticut, the first international figure skating championship takes place.
1916 - Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.
1922 - The USS Langley is commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier.
1933 - Giuseppe Zangara is executed in Florida's electric chair for fatally shooting Anton Cermak in an assassination attempt against President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1942 - World War II: In Zgierz, Poland, 100 Poles are taken from a labor camp and shot by the Germans.
1942 - Holocaust: in Rohatyn, western Ukraine, the German SS murder 3,000 Jews, including 600 children, annihilating 70% of Rohatyn's Jewish ghetto.
1942 - World War II: General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, makes his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines, in which he says: "I came out of Bataan and I shall return".
1948 - With a Musicians Union ban lifted, the first telecasts of classical music in the United States, under Eugene Ormandy and Arturo Toscanini, are given on CBS and NBC.
1951 - Fujiyoshida, a city located in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, in the center of the Japanese main island of Honshū is founded.
1952 - The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.
1956 - Tunisia gains independence from France.
1964 - The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) is established per an agreement signed on June 14, 1962.
1969 - John Lennon and Yoko ono were married.
1974 - Ian Ball attempts, but fails, to kidnap Her Royal Highness Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips in The Mall, outside Buckingham Palace, London.
1980 - The Radio Caroline ship, Mi Amigo founders in a gale off the English coast.
1985 - Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
1987 - The Food and Drug Administration approves the anti-AIDS drug, AZT.
1988 - Eritrean War of Independence: Having defeated the Nadew Command, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front enters the town of Afabet, victoriously concluding the Battle of Afabet.
1990 - Ferdinand Marcos's widow, Imelda Marcos, goes on trial for bribery, embezzlement, and racketeering.
1993 - An IRA bomb explodes in Warrington, northwest England, killing two children.
1995 - A sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway kills 12 and wounds 1,300 persons.
1999 - Legoland California, the first and only Legoland outside of Europe, opens in Carlsbad, California.
2000 - Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a former Black Panther once known as H. Rap Brown, is captured after a gun battle that leaves a Georgia sheriff's deputy dead.
2003 - 2003 invasion of Iraq: In the early hours of the morning, the United States and three other countries begin military operations in Iraq.
2004 - Stephen Harper wins the leadership of the newly created Conservative Party of Canada, becoming the party's first leader.
2005 - A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits Fukuoka, Japan, its first major quake in over 100 years. One person is killed, hundreds are injured and evacuated.
2006 - Cyclone Larry makes landfall in eastern Australia, destroying most of the country's banana crop.
2006 - Over 150 Chadian soldiers are killed in eastern Chad by members of the rebel UFDC. The rebel movement sought to overthrow Chadian president Idriss Deby.