On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on April 20:
0121 Marcus Aurelius 16th Roman emperor (161-80), philosopher
1442 Edward IV King (England, 1461-83)
1745 Philippe Pinel physician, founder of psychiatry
1808 Louis-Napoleon [Napoleon III] emperor of France (1852-71)
1809 John Smith Preston Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1881
1824 Alfred Holt Colquitt Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1894
1827 John Gibbon Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1896
1839 Carol I King of Romania (1881-1914)
1850 Daniel Chester French/American sculptor (The Minute Man)
1879 Robert Lynd Irish writer/critic (Pleasures of Ignorance)
1881 Nikolai Miaskovsky Novogeorievsk Poland, composer (Kirov is With Us)
1889 Adolf Hitler Braunau Austria, dictator of Nazi Germany (1936-45)
("Churchill! With his cigars, with his brandy, and his rotten painting! Rotten! Hitler, there was a painter. He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon--two coats!")
1893 Harold Lloyd Burchard NE, silent comic (Why Worry, Safety Last)
1893 Joan Miró Spain, painter/sculptor (Dog Barking at the Moon)
1904 Bruce Cabot Carlsbad NM, actor (Diamonds are Forever, King Kong)
1907 Alan Reed actor/voice (Fred Allen Show, Fred Flintstone)
1909 Lionel Hampton orchestra leader/vibraphone improviser (Depths Below)
1920 John Paul Stevens Chicago IL, 103rd Supreme Court Justice (1975- )
1923 Tito Puente Puerto Rico, bandleader (Dance Mania)
1924 Nina Foch Leiden Netherlands, actress (American in Paris)
1927 Karl Müller Switzerland, superconductivity physicist (Nobel 1987)
1936 Pat Roberts (Representative-Republican-KS, 1981- )
1938 Johnny Tillotson Jacksonville FL, singer (Gidget, Poetry in Motion)
1940 George Takei Los Angeles CA, actor (Sulu-Star Trek, Green Berets)
1941 Ryan O'Neal Los Angeles CA, actor (Peyton Place, Paper Moon, Love Story)
1943 Ian Watson UK, sci-fi author (Book of Being, Whores of Babylon)
1949 Jessica Lange Cloquet MN, actress (King Kong, Tootsie)
1951 Luther Vandross Bronx NY, rock vocalist (Here and Now, Never Too Much)
1955 Donald R Pettit Silverton OR, PhD/astronaut
1959 Clint Howard Burbank CA, actor (Gentle Ben)
Deaths which occurred on April 20:
1314 Clement V [Bertrand Got] pope (1305-14) move papacy to Avignon, dies
1632 Nicolas Antione converted to Judiasm, burned at the stake
1769 Pontiac Indian chief to Ottawa, murdered
1786 John Goodricke English deaf & dumb astronomer, dies at 21
1812 George Clinton 4th US Vice President, dies at 73 1st Vice President to die in office
1906 Australian wombat oldest known marsupial, dies in London Zoo at 26
1912 Bram Stoker Irish theater manager/writer (Dracula), dies
1962 Jesse G Vincent engineer designed 1st V-12 engine, dies at 82
1973 Robert Armstrong actor (Fall Guy, Exposed), dies at 82
1974 Mohammed Ayub Khan premier/President (Pakistan), dies
1982 Archibald MacLeish US, lawyer/writer (Conquistador), dies at 89
1984 Mabel Mercer English/US singer (Fly me to the moon), dies at 84
1991 Don[ald] Siegel US director (Coogan's Bluff/Dirty Harry), dies at 78
1991 Yumzhagin Tsendenbal PM of Mongolia (1952-74), dies
1992 Benny [Alfred Hawthorn] Hill comedian (Benny Hill Show), dies of a heart attack at 67
1992 Johnny Shines Delta blues singer/guitarist, dies at 76
1996 Christopher Robin Milne bookseller/son of writer A A Milne (Winnie the Pooh), dies at 75
GWOT Casualties
Iraq
20-Apr-2004 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Specialist Christopher D. Gelineau Mosul (west of) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US 1st Sergeant Bradley C. Fox Landstuhl Reg. Med. Ctr. Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Private 1st Class Leroy Harris-Kelly Al Qasim (east of) Non-hostile - vehicle accident
Afghanistan
A Good Day
http://icasualties.org/oif/ Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
On this day...
0295 8th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
0850 Guntherus becomes bishop of Cologne
1139 2nd Lateran Council (10th ecumenical council) opens in Rome (The crossbow was outlawed)
1505 Jews are expelled from Orange Burgundy by Philibert of Luxembourg
1653 Cromwell routes English parliament to house
1657 Battle in Santa Cruz Bay, Tenerife English fleet under Robert Blake sinks Spanish silver fleet
1702 Comet C/1702 H1 approaches within 0.0437 astronomical units (AUs) of Earth
1770 Captain Cook arrives in New South Wales
1775 British begin siege of Boston
1777 New York adopts new constitution as an independent state
1792 France declares war on Austria, Prussia & Sardinia
1799 Napoleon issues a decree calling for establishing Jerusalem for Jews
1809 Napoleon I defeats Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria
1836 Territory of Wisconsin created
1853 Harriet Tubman starts Underground Railroad
1861 Thaddeus Lowe lands in a balloon in Unionville South Carolina (convinces citizens was merely an innocent aerial journey to test his strange craft.)
1861 Battle of Norfolk VA
1871 3rd Enforcement Act (President can suspend writ of habeas corpus)
1879 1st mobile home (horse drawn) used in a journey from London & Cyprus
1884 Pope Leo XIII encyclical "On Freemasonry"
1894 136,000 mine workers strike in Ohio for pay increase
1896 1st public film showing in US John Philip Sousa's "El Capitán", premieres in NYC
1902 Marie & Pierre Curie isolate radioactive element radium
1904 George Bernard Shaw's "Candida", premieres in London
1910 Halley's Comet passes 29th recorded perihelion at 87.9 million km
1912 Fenway Park officially opens, Boston Red Sox beat New York Highlanders 7-6 in 11
1912 Tiger Stadium in Detroit opens, Tigers beat Cleveland Indians 6-5
1914 33 killed by soldiers during mine strike in Ludlow CO
1916 1st National League game at Weeghman Park (Wrigley Field) in Chicago opens, Chicago Cubs beat Cincinnati Reds 7-6
1917 Pravda (Lenin names Russia "Free land of world")
1919 Polish Army captures Vilno, Lithuania from Soviet Army
1920 Tornadoes kill 219 in Alabama & Mississippi
1920 Balfour Declaration recognized, makes Palestine a British Mandate
1926 1st check sent by radio facsimile transmission across the Atlantic
1931 British House of Commons agrees for sports play on Sunday
1934 Heinrich Himmler becomes inspector Prussian secret state police
1935 "You're Hit Parade" begins broadcasting (becomes #1 quickly)
1936 Jews repel an Arab attack in Petach Tikvah Palestine
1939 New York World's Fair opens
1939 Ted Williams' 1st hit (off of Yankee Red Ruffing) a double
1940 1st electron microscope demonstrated (RCA), Philadelphia PA
1941 100 German bombers attack Athens
1942 Heavy German assault on Malta
1945 Soviet troops enter Berlin
1945 US 7th Army & allies forces capture Nuremberg & Stuttgart in Germany
1945 American forces liberated Buchenwald. 350 Americans were imprisoned at Berga, a sub-camp of Buchenwald
1945 Cleveland Browns organization formed by Arthur "Mickey" McBride
1945 US forces conquer Motobu peninsula on Okinawa
1946 1st televised baseball broadcast in Chicago, St Louis Cardinals vs Chicago Cubs
1949 Jockey Bill Shoemaker wins his 1st race, in Albany CA
1953 Operation Little Switch began in Korea, the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners of war.
1958 Morocco demands departure of Spanish troops
1962 NASA civilian pilot Neil A Armstrong takes X-15 to an altitude of 63,250 meters
1962 New Orleans Citizens Company gives free 1-way ride to blacks to move North
1962 OAS-leader ex-General Salan arrested in Algiers
1964 86% of black students boycott Cleveland schools
1965 People's Republic China offers North Vietnam military aid
1967 US planes bomb Haiphong for 1st time during the Vietnam War
1967 US Surveyor 3 lands on Moon
1967 French author Régis Debray("French radical theoretician") caught in Bolivia
1968 Pierre Elliott Trudeau sworn-in as Canada's PM
1970 Bruno Kreisky becomes 1st socialist chancellor of Austria
1971 Barbra Streisand records "We've Only Just Begun"
1971 US Supreme Court upholds use of busing to achieve racial desegregation
1972 Apollo 16's Young & Duke land on Moon with Boeing Lunar Rover #2
1974 Paul McCartney releases "Band on the Run"
1976 George Harrison sings the lumberjack song with Monty Python
1977 Supreme Court rules "Live Free or Die" may be covered on New Hampshire licenses
1977 Woody Allen's film "Annie Hall" premieres
1980 Cubans begin to arrive in US from Mariel boatlift
1981 Rocker Papa John Phillips arrested for drug possession
1983 President Ronald Reagan signs a $165 billion bail-out for Social Security
1984 Russian offensive in Panshirvallei Afghánistán
1985 Karyn Marshall of New York NY lifted 303 lbs in a clean-and-jerk lift
1986 Michael Jordan sets NBA playoff record with 63 points in a game
1986 Vladimir Horowitz performs in his Russian homeland
1987 Sri Lanka Tamils shoot 122 Singalesen dead
1987 US deports Karl Linnas, charged with nazi war crimes, to USSR
1988 US accuses Renamo of killing 100,000 Mozambiquians
1990 Pete Rose pleads guilty to hiding $300,000 in income
1993 Uranus passes Neptune (this occurs once every 171 years)
1993 President Clinton said he accepted responsibility for the decision to try to end the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Texas, BUT laid "ultimate responsibility" on David Koresh for the deaths that resulted.
1994 Danny Harold Rolling, sentenced to death in Florida, for killing 5
1994 Serbian army bombs hospital in Goradze Bosnia, 47 killed
1994 Space shuttle STS-59 (Endeavour 6), lands
1996 Chicago Bulls win record 72 games in a season
1997 1st baseball game in Hawaii, St Louis Cardinals beat San Diego Padres in doubleheader
1997 Mark McGwire, is 4th to homerun on Detroit Tiger left field roof (others are Frank Howard, Harmon Killibrew, & Cecil Fielder)
1998 In an unusual use of a racketeering law designed to fight the mob, a federal jury in Chicago ruled that anti-abortion protest organizers had used threats and violence to shut down clinics. However, the US Supreme Court ruled in February 2003 that federal racketeering and extortion laws were wrongly used to try to stop blockades, harassment and violent protests outside clinics.
1999 Deadliest school shooting in US history at Columbine High School, Littleton CO, 13 killed, 23 wounded
1999 In South Africa the police beating of 4 carjacking suspects was broadcast over TV. One suspect died from the beating and the officers were suspended and put under criminal investigation.
2002 Sudanese government forces began a major offensive against 3 southern provinces to oust the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Rebels said hundreds of thousands of people were displaced
2003 Jamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti (9 of clubs), son-in-law to Saddam Hussein and former deputy head of Iraq's tribal affairs office, left Syria and surrendered to members of the Iraqi National Congress.
2004 Afghanistan carried out its first execution since the fall of the hardline Taliban, putting a bullet to the head of a former military commander convicted of more than 20 murders.
Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
US : Boys and Girls Club Week (Day 3)
US : National Lingerie Week (Day 3)
US : National Science and Technology Week (Day 3)
National Look Alike Day
US : Volunteer Recognition Day
Holy Humor Month
Religious Observances
RC : St. Marian
Religious History
1441 During the Council of Florence (1438-45), Eugenius IV issued the bull "Etsi non dubitemus," which asserted the superiority of the pope over the Councils.
1718 Birth of David Brainerd, colonial American missionary to the Indians of New England. Following his premature death from tuberculosis at 29, Brainerd's journal (published in 1649 by the Jonathan Edwards) influenced hundreds to become missionaries after him.
1826 Birth of Erastus Johnson, American hymnwriter. A lifelong student of the Bible, Johnson, at age 47, penned the hymn, "O Sometimes the Shadows are Deep" (a.k.a. "The Rock That Is Higher Than I").
1943 In Poland, Germans Nazi troops massacred the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
1987 In Columbus, OH, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) was organized, making it the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S. It represented the merger of three smaller Lutheran bodies, and was officially born on Jan 1, 1988.
Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.
Thought for the day :
"Freedom has a thousand charms to show, that slaves, however content, will never know."
