On this day in history

August 20

29 births · 13 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

Iran–Contra affair

41 years ago

Born this day

1833

Benjamin Harrison

Died aged 67

Photo (modified): Pach Brothers · Public domain

Oldest record

277th

Alexander Radishchev

birth anniversary

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Famous births29

1749 · 277 yrs

Alexander Radishchev

Alexander Nikolayevich Radishchev (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Ради́щев; 31 August 1749 – 24 September 1802) was a Russian author and social critic who was arrested and exiled under Catherine the Great. He brought the tradition of radicalism in Russian literature to prominence with his 1790 work Journey from St.

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LiteratureDied aged 53

View profile Photo (modified): Unidentified painter · Public domain

1778 · 248 yrs

Bernardo O'Higgins

Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme (Spanish pronunciation:; 20 August 1778 – 24 October 1842) was a Chilean military officer, statesman and a major leader of Chile's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire.

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MilitaryDied aged 64

View profile Photo (modified): José Gil de Castro · Public domain

1779 · 247 yrs

Jöns Jacob Berzelius

Jöns Jacob Berzelius (Swedish:; 20 August 1779 – 7 August 1848) was a Swedish chemist. Berzelius is considered, along with Robert Boyle, John Dalton, and Antoine Lavoisier, to be one of the founders of modern chemistry.

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ScienceDied aged 68

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1833 · 193 yrs

Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was the 23rd president of the United States, serving from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia—a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, and a great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a Founding Father.

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PoliticsDied aged 67

View profile Photo (modified): Pach Brothers · Public domain

1847 · 179 yrs

Bolesław Prus

Aleksander Głowacki (20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912), better known by his pen name Bolesław Prus (Polish: ), was a Polish journalist, novelist, a leading figure in the history of Polish literature and philosophy, and a distinctive voice in world literature.

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LiteratureDied aged 64

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1858 · 168 yrs

Omar al-Mukhtar

ʿUmar al-Mukhtār Muḥammad bin Farḥāt al-Manifī (Arabic: عُمَر الْمُخْتَار مُحَمَّد بِن فَرْحَات الْمَنِفِي; 20 August 1858 – 16 September 1931), called The Lion of the Desert, known among the colonial Italians as Matari of the Mnifa, was a Libyan revolutionary and Imam who led the native resistance in Cyrenaica…

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MilitaryDied aged 73

View profile Photo (modified): Italian colonial administration of Libya [1] · Public domain

1860 · 166 yrs

Raymond Poincaré

Raymond Nicolas Landry Poincaré (French:; 20 August 1860 – 15 October 1934) was a French statesman who served as President of France from 1913 to 1920, and three times as Prime Minister of France. He was a conservative leader, primarily committed to political and social stability.

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LawDied aged 74

View profile Photo (modified): Harris & Ewing · Public domain

1890 · 136 yrs

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (US:; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of weird, horror, fantasy, and science fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos, but his legacy is also apparent in terms like "Lovecraftian horror" and an enduring fandom.

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LiteratureWould be 136

View profile Photo (modified): Lucius B. Truesdell · Public domain

1901 · 125 yrs

Salvatore Quasimodo

Salvatore Quasimodo (Italian:; 20 August 1901 – 14 June 1968) was an Italian poet and translator, awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times".

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LiteratureWould be 125

View profile Photo (modified): Nobel Foundation · Public domain

1913 · 113 yrs

Roger Sperry

Roger Wolcott Sperry (August 20, 1913 – April 17, 1994) was an American neuropsychologist, neurobiologist, cognitive neuroscientist, who, together with David H. Hubel and Torsten Nils Wiesel, won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work with split-brain research.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 113

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1935 · 91 yrs

Ron Paul

Ronald Ernest Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American author, activist, medical doctor, and former politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977, and again from 1979 to 1985, as well as for Texas's 14th congressional district from 1997 to 2013.

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PoliticsAge 91

View profile Photo (modified): United States Congress · Public domain

1936 · 90 yrs

Hideki Shirakawa

Hideki Shirakawa (白川英樹, Shirakawa Hideki; August 20, 1936 – August 24, 2026) was a Japanese chemist and engineer who was Professor Emeritus at the University of Tsukuba and Zhejiang University. He was best known for his discovery of conductive polymers.

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ScienceWould be 90

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Showing 12 of 29

Famous deaths13

1823 · 203 yrs

Pius VII

Pope Pius VII (Italian: Pio VII; born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti; 14 August 1742 – 20 August 1823) was head of the Catholic Church from 14 March 1800 to his death in August 1823. He was the leader of the Papal States from June 1800 to 17 May 1809 and again from 1814 to his death.

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ReligionDied aged 81

View profile Photo (modified): Jacques-Louis David · Public domain

1854 · 172 yrs

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (German:; 27 January 1775 – 20 August 1854) was a German philosopher.

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PhilosophyDied aged 79

View profile Photo (modified): Hermann Biow (1804–1850), Berlin · Public domain

1914 · 112 yrs

Pius X

Pope Pius X (Italian: Pio X; born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 2 June 1835 – 20 August 1914) was head of the Catholic Church from 4 August 1903 until his death in August 1914. He opposed modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, and promoted liturgical reforms and Thomist scholastic theology.

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ReligionDied aged 79

View profile Photo (modified): Ernest Walter Histed · Public domain

1915 · 111 yrs

Paul Ehrlich

Paul Ehrlich (German:; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology and antimicrobial chemotherapy. He shared the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Élie Metchnikoff "in recognition of their work on immunity".

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 61

View profile Photo (modified): Eduard Blum · CC BY 4.0

1917 · 109 yrs

Adolf von Baeyer

Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer (German:; 31 October 1835, Berlin – 20 August 1917, Starnberg) was a German chemist who synthesized indigo and developed a nomenclature for cyclic compounds (that was subsequently extended and adopted as part of the IUPAC organic nomenclature).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 81

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1940 · 86 yrs

Leon Trotsky

Lev Davidovich Trotsky (né Bronstein; 7 November 1879 – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky, was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist.

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ActivismWould be 146

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1961 · 65 yrs

Percy Williams Bridgman

Percy Williams Bridgman (April 21, 1882 – August 20, 1961) was an American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1946 for his work on the physics of high pressures. He also wrote extensively on the scientific method and on other aspects of the philosophy of science.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 144

View profile Photo (modified): Nobel foundation · Public domain

1980 · 46 yrs

Joe Dassin

Joseph Ira Dassin (November 5, 1938 – August 20, 1980) was an American singer-songwriter. He sang in multiple languages but found his greatest successes in France and the French-speaking world.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicWould be 87

View profile Photo (modified): Agenzia Pitre, published in Bolero Teletutto Magazine · Public domain

2001 · 25 yrs

Fred Hoyle

Sir Fred Hoyle (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer. With Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge and William Alfred Fowler, he formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis in the influential B2FH paper.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 111

View profile Photo (modified): AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Clayton Collection · Attribution

2008 · 18 yrs

Hua Guofeng

Hua Guofeng (born Su Zhu (苏铸); 16 February 1921 – 20 August 2008; also spelled as Hua Kuo-feng) was a Chinese politician who served as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and the premier of China.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 105

View profile Photo (modified): Bibliothèque de l'Hôtel de Ville - Bibliothèques spécialisées de la Ville de Paris · Public domain

2012 · 14 yrs

Meles Zenawi

Meles Zenawi Asres (Tigrigna and Amharic: መለስ ዜናዊ ኣስረስ; pronounced; born Legesse Zenawi Asres; 9 May 1955 – 20 August 2012) was an Ethiopian politician and former rebel militant commander who served as president of Ethiopia from 1991 to 1995 and as prime minister from 1995 until his death in 2012.

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PoliticsWould be 71

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2012 · 14 yrs

Phyllis Diller

Phyllis Ada Diller (née Driver; July 17, 1917 – August 20, 2012) was an American stand-up comedian, actress, author, musician and visual artist, noted for her eccentric stage persona, characterized by her self-deprecating humor, wild hair and clothes, and exaggerated, cackling laugh.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

TelevisionWould be 109

View profile Photo (modified): User:Brian Hamilton · Public domain

Showing 12 of 13

Events5

1944 · 82 yrs

Jassy–Kishinev Offensive

The Jassy–Kishinev offensive, named after the two major cities, Jassy and Kishinev, in the staging area, was a Soviet offensive against Axis forces, which took place in Eastern Romania from 20 to 29 August 1944 during World War II.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1968 · 58 yrs

Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia

On 20–21 August 1968, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four fellow Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, and the Hungarian People's Republic.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1985 · 41 yrs

Iran–Contra affair

The Iran–Contra affair or Iran–Contra scandal (Persian: ماجرای ایران-کنترا; Spanish: Caso Irán-Contra), also referred to as the Iran Initiative or Contragate, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Reagan…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

History

1999 · 27 yrs

1999 World Championships in Athletics

The 7th World Championships in Athletics (Spanish: Campeonato Mundial de Atletismo de 1999), a World Athletic Championships event held under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held at the Estadio Olímpico de Sevilla, Seville, Spain, between the August 20 and August 29.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sports

2008 · 18 yrs

Spanair Flight 5022

Spanair Flight 5022 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Barcelona–El Prat Airport to Gran Canaria Airport, Spain, with a stopover in Madrid–Barajas Airport that crashed just after take-off from runway 36L at Madrid-Barajas Airport at 14:24 CEST (12:24 UTC) on 20 August 2008.

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Disaster

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